Sir Aldingar was highly-prized by F. J. Child, but he could find only two texts, one from the famous Percy Folio Manuscript (probably compiled in Northern England around 1650) and another from Sir Walter Scott’s Minstrelsey of the Scottish Border, published in 1803. These are significantly different, in that the latter (Child 59 B) has an adult character, Sir Hugh Le Blond, kill the villain Rodingham in battle over the queen’s honour, and omits the prophetic dream.

Several scholars, Child included, tried to draw parallels with the Scandinavian ballad Ravengaard og Memering, documented in 1550, and with much earlier quasi-historical prose accounts and folk tales on the ‘accused queen’ theme. The ‘David and Goliath’ combat scenario occurs in several of these, with the champion variously described as a small man, a dwarf or – in William of Malmesbury’s account of around 1100 – “a page-boy, the keeper of the queen’s pet starling”.

Sir Aldingar was never encountered by any collector of traditional song, and has never been recorded in English by a folk revival musician until now, when by a bizarre coincidence Chris Foster and myself (rather like the proverbial buses that arrive late and plurally) recorded our own different takes on the ballad co-incidentally, independently and almost simultaneously. Chris’s version is on Outsiders (Green Man, GMCD 003)

In attempting to render a ballad like this comprehensible to a modern audience, you have to arrive at a coherent version of the story, and retain a sense of poetry, whilst updating some archaic language in the originals. So for instance I translated the old proverb “When bale is at hyest, boote is at next” as “In time of trial help shall come” (v23). In Child 59A, the equivalent of my verse 27 ran: “When Aldingar see that little one, fful little (sic) of him hee thought / If there had been half a hundred such, of them he wold not haue wrought.” Looking at my corresponding verse, you'll see that liberties have been taken. I plead guilty.

That said, my ballad is collated from the Child A and B versions as follows: Verses 1, 14, 15, 16, 17, 19, 21, 22, 23, 26, 27, 28, 29, 31, 32, and 33 are adapted from A, with considerable condensation and rewording (sometimes only a few words of the original verse remain); verses 2 – 11, 24 and 30 are based loosely on B; verse 13 is from an additional three-verse fragment Child labelled 59C; verses 12, 18, 20, 25 and 34 are largely fabricated, in the spirit of the originals. Verse 18, for instance, combines the idea of messengers heading for the points of the compass - from B - with the successful quest of the Eastward-travelling messenger, from A. And although A includes the promotion of the leper to steward, the fact of the king rewarding the champion is from B – both went into my v34.

The champion is described in A as “a little child”, appearing to be “four yeeres old”. This was taking David and Goliath a bit far, and threatened to make the battle scene rather farcical, so I made him a bit larger, and left his nature ambiguous. A hobbit, perhaps?

I made up the tune. Long after composing it I detected echoes of Steeleye Span’s King Henry, which isn’t altogether surprising as that was the first Child Ballad that really grabbed me as a teenager. They pinched that tune from a different song (When I Was a Little Boy), anyway.

17. But since I cannot battle make, grant to me this right
Let me seek a champion bold, with Aldingar to fight

21. Turn again, you messenger, do not me deny
Bid the queen think on the dream in the bed where she did lie

25. And they have brought the brands of fire while tears fell to her breast
But then they saw that little one, come riding from the East

29. He struck first at Aldingar, took his legs off at the knee
Stand up stand up, you false traitor, now you’re a match for me