The Apprentice Boy, iii, 4abcb, 12ca: Like Keats's Isabella, the daughter of a merchant in a post-town loves her father's apprentice. He is slain by her brothers and his body hidden in a valley. His ghost reveals the murderers, who, striving to flee, are lost at sea. (Identified by Belden with an English version, The Constant Farmer's Son, in The Sewanee Review, April, 1911, p. 222.)
II.
The songs in this group are apparently of British origin. Material has not been at hand to justify an attempt to establish their identity.
The Rich Margent [Merchant], 2abcb, 12: Dinah, daughter of a rich London merchant, loves Felix contrary to her father's wishes. Going into the garden she drinks poison. Felix arrives and drains the rest of the potion. Both are buried in one grave.
Beneath the Arch of London Bridge, 4a3b4c3b and 4aaaa, 5ca: Here a man, whose son has recently died, finds a waif. Struck by his resemblance to his own heir, he adopts the orphan boy.
Jack Wilson, ii, 4a3b4c3b, 9: The confession of Jack Wilson, a Thames boatman, awaiting execution in Newgate prison for robbery done in Katherine Street, and his denunciation of the "false deluding girl" for whose sake he had done the wrong.
The Old Woman of London, 3abcb, 6: She causes her husband to suck two magic marrowbones, which blind him; then leading him to the river, she essays to push him in to drown. But he steps aside, and she dies in his stead. The refrain is:
Sing tidri-i-odre-erdri-um,
Sing fol-de-ri-o-day!
The Golden Glove, ii, 4aabb, 9: A mariner's daughter, about to be married to a young squire of London, feigns illness, goes a-hunting on the estate of her favored lover, a farmer, intentionally drops her glove, and vows she will marry only the man who can return it. Of course, the farmer is the lucky finder.