Lord Randall

Lord Randall

This ballad is probably originated in the northern Italy, knows as the Avvelenato, and we find more than 150 versions of it in different Italian dialects. It must date back at least to the 15^th but we know that this ballad was famous in Siena in the 16^th century. Thanks to the pilgrims , merchants, soldiers and minstrel who route trough Europe the story of Lord Randall, as we called this ballads in Scottish and American version, crossed the Alps and reach all the different European culture who transfer this story in the new world too. Every version is adapted to the tradition of the singer that sung it, to feel that it belong to their own culture.

The SCOTTISH version is called Supernatural, because the most important characters are fairies and elves. We noticed it studying the Celtic mythology, where the greenwoods, that is mentioned in the first stanza, were a sacred place inhabited by the fairies, and where people were feared to enter without permission. They tough that the Queen of they fairies would kidnapped  them if they broke the laws of the nature and take them to Fairyland. The greenwoods was too the point of contact between our world and the world of the death, who came back alive during the night of 31 October, Halloween nights, and route all over the world.

We could notice a lot of strange things there, a girl who is in the middle of greenwoods alone with a pain that contained eels fried and why Lord Randall desire to hunt there knowing that the fairies will punished him. Probably the girl that he meet is a fairies with the features of his real girl friends who want to trick him. In the Celtic culture to become man there was a rite of passage, hunting alone in the greenwoods challenging the taboo of nature. And the revenge of it arrived every time, like in this story. In the last four stanza happened something of really strange, for our culture: lord Randall's mother ask about his last will. It was normal in medieval periods when few people were able to write and read, so it was a way to know the testaments of the people who were going to death. He leaves everything to his brother, and few thing to his sister and mother, It means that the Celtic culture was based on a patriarchal culture.

The AMERICAN version is originated by Scottish pioneers who founded a society based on the Christian culture that  frowned the elves and fairies. That's why there why don't find these characters, and the greenwoods is replaced by the wildwoods because when the first settlers arrived they have to build the first village in the middle of huge forest habited just by wild animals. Lord Randall eat probably in a cabin build in the wood with his true love who poisoned him.

The second difference with the Scottish version is that the mother doesn't talk about hawks, because people used it to hunt just in medieval period.  In the testament he talks about his father and his mother, showing how much important was the unity of the family.

The Irish versions is adapted to a local need to tell a story about a man, Henry, who is poisoned by is wife. Henry is not a Lord and is poor, we notice it reading what he leaves to his mother, a woolen blanket, and to his children, the key of the heaven.

A hard rain's gonna fall

In the first stanza we also notice the similar stock phrase (where have you been..) of Lord Randall. He said that he stumbled 12 mountains. The twelve was a sacred number upon all the ancient culture, from the Babylonian culture who divided the days in 12 hours, they counted in dozens. The Semitic culture considered this like the symbol of fullness, the last goal to be saved and be accepted in the reign of god. In the Bible there are 12 apostles who represented the 12 lost originally tribes of Israel. The lunar calendar is settles in 12 months. 12 Days between the Christmas and Epiphany. We hope, every 12 months, something new and a better life than the one that we have. Probably Bob Dylan use this number according with the verb stumble, to say that we'll never reach the world of God if we continued to kill what he created for us. Then he said that e walks trough seven forests, the greenwoods we had seen in the Scottish version. This number symbolized the death and rebirth, and the forest the otherwrold, like in the Celtic culture. It is destroy by an hard rain that nobody can defeat.

In the second stanza the son describe what he had seen in the place that he mentioned in the first stanza: a baby who is surrounded by wolves. It means that there is no hope for the man because the wolves are the symbol of violence and greed. In the seven forest he meet  me who destroy it with their bleeding hammers, representing the war.

In the 12 dead seas he saw a ladder covered by water who represented the way to reach the world of god, that we had thrown in a place where the exists just the death. We forgotten that everything we have id divine. So we have no way to communicate with other people and with nature.

He saw a graveyard where there are thousand talkers death, who have all the tongue broken, The tried to  warn us about the danger of this hard rain but we constricted them to the eternal silence. Our generation instead of learning by history are marching on the graveyard.

In the third stanza he shows us that the Final Judgments is announced by the sound of despair fear and scorn and that nothing moves  people. If they hear someone starves they laugh, and if an artist offers his soul and his voice he is bound to remain alone. In the fourth stanza he met the child of the second stanza who is grow up, and who walk with a black dog, the death He meet a woman disillusion, there is a terrible seen. The only hope is the girl who gives a rainbow.

In the last stanza he is a preacher who want that everyone wake up and invite to love and respect the mother, the nature, before it's too late.

Elfin Knight

In Great Britain Elves could be both masculine and feminine, but in this case we're reading about a knight, so undoubtedly about a masculine elf. People think that they were fallen angels who, when God sent away Lucifer, who escape from there and found hole in the earth, the entrance of the Fairy world.

When the Church keep in contact with the Celtic culture they notice that this believe where frowned upon the Bible and they understand that was impossible to persuade people that elves and fairies aren't true so they decided to convince everybody that they were devilish creature. 

They were as tall as a normal man, they were famous to being good lovers, so the girl were warned not to go to the greenwood. During the celebration of the 1^st May, this date represents the beginning of the good season, boys used to wear green to seem elves, and girl go into the forest and when they met themselves they make love, it was a rite of fertility. The Church, to avoid this pagan celebration, warned the young girl that was dangerous to make love with an elf that they risk to meet in the forest. This Ballads is relatively recent. The elf ask three question to her lover and if she will answer to those question she will become her true lover. But the girl answer with a counter spell, three other question. With this ballads the Church persuade girl to be more intelligent buy those demon lover who want to tempt them. Men in the past makes strange question to their future wife to check their intelligence.

Hind Horn

The romance of Hind Horn have all the features of a classical Chanson de Geste: there is the theme of love, the figure of a strong loyal knight who fight to show his virility and to settle foreign lands. In all the Canhson de Geste, and in Hind Horn too, the enemies are the Saracens, considered devil because they were pagan. The love story was an important theme, like in our films today. There are magic elements (the ring that will change color if  Remenhild fall in love with someone else) and dreams that reveal tha reality. We find the theme of the exile and of the friendship. This story warned us about people who we considered friends and who could be possible trader.

The ballads shows tha most important themes, and was sung by the minstrels that sometimes act just an episode of this story, because was too much hard remember so much verse.

The ballads it's not so completed as the Romance, the hero, who has no name, travel without any reason all over the sea and come back home to reach his true love when he watch that the ring, the magical object, change colors and this means that she was going to marry someone else. The Saracens were no mentioned because it was no so important after the finish of Crusades.