Tag: child ballads

my current favorite bizarre folk song plot is Willie o’ Winsbury:

A king comes home from war to find his daughter pregnant, and demands to know who knocked her up. She tells him it was Willie of Winsbury, so the king sends his men to arrest him and declares that he will hang for this. But when Willie is brought before him, the king is so impressed by just how dang hot Willie is that he tells his daughter “…wow, you know what, fair enough, if I were you I’d have totally hit that. Here’s some land and wealth, get it girl go ahead and marry him.”