False Foudrage (Child 89)

False Foudrage excited me the first time I read through it in the English and Scottish Popular Ballads: a dark and thrilling tale of lust, jealousy, murder, revenge, codewords and surrogate parenthood, with a satisfying conclusion. Child prints two substantial texts and one fragment, and the first thing to do was to decide on the cast of characters. All three versions start off with three kings vying for the hand of a lady, but where Child 89 B & C have either King Eastmuir or King Westmuir killing their successful rival out of jealousy, 89 A sees the three kings settle things amicably only for King Honor to fall victim to a baronial uprising in which the villain “Footrage” is merely chosen by lot (expressed in classic ballad lingo as “casting kaivels”) to do the dirty deed. I decided to combine both themes by retaining the Foudrage character but making him King Eastmuir’s hired assassin. After that things just fell into place with the usual cherry-picking from Child’s A and B versions: verses 1-5 are from B, with Foudrage substituted for the Eastmuir King and one or two concessions to more modern phraseology; the rest (excepting v22) is from A, with four verses omitted and another three pruned by amalgamating successive pairs. For v22 I went back to B – I couldn’t resist the idea that the villain has no idea of the identity or motive of his nemesis, right up to the point of death.

Unusually for one of the rarer ballads, three tunes survive from tradition. Child printed one from the Harris MS, noted down from an elderly nurse in Perthshire towards the end of the 18th century. This however, is the tune famously expropriated by Andy Irvine (mistakenly, some say, as a result of turning over two pages at once) for Willie O’ Winsbury, and later pressed into service by Richard Thompson for Farewell, Farewell. Not only does this tune belong in the “hackneyed” category (in my book, at least), but it’s also rather too gentle a creature to carry the grand guignol of the Foudrage ballad. Without being aware at the time of the two alternative tunes given by Bronson (which, with hindsight, don’t particularly appeal to me anyway), I decided on a whim to set my verses to the tune of Lord Gregory, (aka Child 76, The Lass of Roch Royal), which I knew from the singing of Joe Kerins, that wonderful, now sadly departed, resident of Harry Boardman’s 1980s folk club at The Unicorn in central Manchester. I would guess he learned it either from Joe Heaney or Elizabeth Cronin, although Ewan MacColl recorded a very similar version. Either way I had the tune in my head, but – possibly intimidated by the strength of Joe’s rendition - had never fancied singing the ballad. So, there I was, thinking about a tune for Foudrage, into my head pops Lord Gregory, and the rest is history.

17. When days were gone and years come on
Wise William he thought long
And he has ta’en King Honor’s son
And they’ve a hunting gone

21. So he’s set his bow all to his back
He’s climbed the castle wall
And there he’s met with False Foudrage
A-walking in the hall