The Strange Case-History of Lord Randal

New Zealand Listener, Volume 30, Issue 778, 18 June 1954, Page 18

The Strange Case-History of

Lord Randal

NEARLY everyone knows the ballad "Where Have You Been All the day, Billy Boy, Billy Boy?" or as it more correctly goes, "Where have you been all day, My boy Billy?" But how many know that it is basically the same song as the Scottish border ballad "Lord Randal"? The English poet Terence Tiller has written for radio production a fascinating and unusual account-of the Origins of this very old ballad, which involves feuding lairds of the Scottish border, the assassination of English kings, and the wanderings of medieval troubadours through Northern Italy and France. His script has been adapted for the NZBS by John Blennerhasset and produced in Wellington, and the programme, called The Ballad of Lord Randal, will be broadcast from the YC stations, starting from 1YC at 10.2 p.m. on Tuesday, June 22. The history of the ballad is traced back in dramatic form through various versions as they appear in such collections as Sir Walter Scott’s Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border and Countess Mar-tinengo-Cesaresco’s The Study of Folk Songs, The many different verses, tunes, and settings show that it was an oral ballad that told of some old legend or historical event. Lord Randal becomes in one version Lord Ronald, and Scott thinks the ballad may have originally referred to the death of Thomas Randolph or Randal, Earl of Murray, nephew to Robert’ Bruce and Governor of Scotland, who died at Musselburgh in 1332, allegedly through poison administered by a friar at the instigation of Edward III. The suggestion in another version, called Lord Donald, that the hero of the song was poisoned by a dish of fishes with "black backs and spreckled bellies" links the ballad up with a story of the death of King John. The King was supposed, in one account, to have been murdered by a monk who gave him a

drink prepared from the bodies of toads: "his belly began to swell for the drink that he drank, so that he died within 11 days, the morrow after Saint Luke’s Day." Another version of the ballad, collected by Cecil Sharp in the journal of the Folk Song Society, mentions the hero as King Henry, linking the tale with the death of Henry I, who was supposed to have died from a dish of lampreys given to him after a hunting expedition, So this fa$cinating story goes on, as one old legend after another seems to become associated with various versions of the song. Another nobleman mentioned is Ranulph or Randal, Earl of Chester in the reign of King John, whose son by his second wife was murdered by his divorced first wife Constance, the "stepmother" who appears in another version of the ballad, Wee Croodlin’ Doo ("Whare hae ye been a’ the day, Willie Doo, Willie Doo?") There are many other variations on this astonishing story, and listeners should enjoy. the gradual unravelling of the thread by the different commentators, and the singing of the many versions of the song, interspersed in the _ programme. The Ballad of Lord Randal will be heard later from 2YC, 3YC and 4YC.