Rose Red and the White Lily
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Rose Red and the White Lily is Child ballad number 103. In some variants, it introduces Robin Hood.
[edit] Synopsis
Rose the Red and White Lily had lost their mother, and their father had remarried an evil stepmother. They had two stepbrothers who fell in love with them, and their stepmother sent them away. When they asked her to treat their loves as well as she treated them, she vowed they would never see them again.
They ran away and dressed as men. Rose the Red went to court to find Bold Arthur. White Lily went to the greenwood in search of her love Brown Robin -- or in some variants Robin Hood -- found him, and became pregnant. When she went into labor, she asked him to blow the horn to summon her brother. Jealous, he refuses. She blows it, Rose the Red comes, and Brown Robin fights her until she is wounded and admits to being a woman.
The news that one of Brown Robin's men has given birth spread to the court, and the king and Bold Arthur, Rose the Red's love, came to see. They found White Lily, Rose the Red, and Brown Robin. The king insisted on a double wedding, and Rose the Red commented on what their stepmother's reaction would have been, if only she could see.
