The Gay Goshawk

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The Gay Goshawk is Child ballad number 96.[1]

[edit] Synopsis

A Scottish squire sends a letter to his love by a goshawk, who tells her that he has sent many letters and will die for love. She goes to ask her father a boon, and he says, anything but leave to marry the squire. She asks that, if she dies, she will be buried in Scotland. He agrees, and she takes a sleeping potion. When her body is carried to Scotland, the squire comes to lament her, opening the coffin or the winding sheet. She wakes -- sometimes after he kisses her -- tells him she has fasted nine days for him, and tells her brothers to go home without her.

[edit] Variants

Heroines who feign death, to win their lovers or for other reasons of escape, are a common motif in ballads.[2] The hero who feigns death to draw a timid maiden is less common, but still often appears as in Willie's Lyke-Wake, Child ballad 25. [3]

The bird as a messenger is common in ballads. Later forms of this ballad use not a goshawk but a parrot, a bird that can talk.[4]

[edit] References

  1. ^ Francis James Child, English and Scottish Popular Ballads "The Gay Goshawk"
  2. ^ Francis James Child, The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, v 2, p 355-6, Dover Publications, New York 1965
  3. ^ Francis James Child, The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, v 1, p 247, Dover Publications, New York 1965
  4. ^ Francis James Child, The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, v 2, p 356-7, Dover Publications, New York 1965
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