My deir son, now tell me, O.’
‘The curse of hell frae me sall ye beir,
Mither, mither:
The curse of hell frae me sall ye beir,
Sic counseils ye gave to me, O.’
LORD RANDAL
The Text is from Scott’s Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border (1803). Other forms give the name as Lord Ronald, but Scott retains Randal on the supposition that the ballad originated in the death of ‘Thomas Randolph, or Randal, Earl of Murray, nephew to Robert Bruce, and governor of Scotland,’ who died at Musselburgh in 1332.
The Story of the ballad is found in Italian tradition nearly three hundred years ago, and also occurs in Dutch, German, Swedish, Danish, Magyar, Wendish, etc.
Certain variants of the ballad bear the title of The Croodlin Doo, and the ‘handsome young man’ is changed for a child, and the poisoner is the child’s step-mother. Scott suggests that this change was made ‘to excite greater interest in the nursery.’ In nearly all forms of the ballad, the poisoning is done by the substitution of snakes (‘eels’) for fish, a common method amongst the ancients of administering poison.