Sent by Lucy Grahame to Lucy Broadwood, April 1904
Lucy Broadwood MSS Collection LEB/5/182/1, LEB/5/182/2
Roud 4, Child 73
“The name of this Ballad is not known”.
“Learnt orally from the daughters of a Kentish Squire; the last of whom died in 1865 at a very advanced age”.
Lucy Grahame seemed to have some doubts as to whether the melody as transcribed was a correct rendering of “the tune which I heard in my childhood”.
When sending this song to Lucy Broadwood, she pondered on the relationship between ‘Lord Thomas and Fair Eleanor’ and ‘Lord Thomas and Fair Annet (both are now in fact ascribed the same Roud number). She had a niece copy out what is very clearly a Scottish set of words for the ballad ‘Lord Thomas and Fair Annet’, as printed in Old English ballads, Nelson & Sons, 1887 (LEB/5/179). That collection had originally been published by Ward and Lock in 1864, and can be found on the Internet Archive at https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_3gAnoD1n58QC/page/n103/mode/2up