The King's Daughter; Together with Catherine Johnstone.

Catherine Johnstone

Glasgow: Printed for the Booksellers

[1840-1850] per National Library of Scotland

8 pages

16 cm

'77' printed at the bottom of the title-page.

A knight has a long affair with a cottage maiden, who he loves, but he must break it off with her when he becomes betrothed to the king’s daughter. She receives the news well and wishes him well, although she appears sad for herself. When he rides to court and is welcomed by the king and his veiled betrothed, his conscience bids him to be honest and break his engagement because he loves another. The king threatens to have him killed, which the knight welcomes, but then the king’s daughter throws off her veil and reveals that she is the same cottage maiden who he loved. In the second song, a beautiful young woman is courted by first the laird of Lamington and then by an English border lord. She breaks of her engagement to Lamington by letter and agrees to marry the English lord. Lamington rushes to her wedding celebrations, where he infiltrates the English knights and approaches Catherine, asking her to run away with him, which she does. Blood is shed on both sides when Lamington’s men at arms clash with the knights, but they ultimately escape and marry. The song ends with a caution to any Englishmen who seek brides in Scotland, who will “feed ye up wi’ flattering words, And that’s foul play; And they’ll dress you as frogs instead of fish, Just on your wedding day.”

Cowden, England

Courtship and Marriage

Fairy Tales & Folklore

Chapbooks - Scotland - Glasgow

Ballads and songs

JPEGs and PDF derived from master file, which was scanned from the original book in 24-bit color at 600 dpi in TIFF format using an Epson Expression 10000XL scanner.

In the public domain; For high quality reproductions, contact Archival & Special Collections, University of Guelph. libaspc@uoguelph.ca, 519-824-4120, Ext. 53413

Archival and Special Collections, University of Guelph Library, Guelph, Ontario, Canada