Tony Rose recorded a lovely version of Lord Randal based on the song Louie Hooper (q.v.) sang to Cecil Sharp. I was looking for a different but equally attractive tune, and settled on the one sung, again to Sharp, by Elizabeth Lock of Mulcheney Ham, in 1904. Mrs. Lock recalled only one verse, in which the victim explains that he himself caught the dodgy eels “out on the sunny banks”, which rather goes against the “poisoned by a third party” verdict that is the consensus of most traditional texts.

Bronson’s examples show that the substance of the story is quite consistent throughout England, Scotland, the USA and Canada, although there’s plenty of exotic variety in the detail. Randal is variously known as Lord Ronald, Jimmy Randal, Jim Riley, John Willow, Sweet William, Sweet Nelson, Fair Elson, Lorendo, Orlando, Durango, Taranty, Teronto, Terence, Uriar, Henry, Billy and of course “wee little Croodin’ Doo”. The cause of death is usually listed as “eels” (fried in butter, boiled in broth, “fresh water potted”, or occasionally served with a side dish of serpent), but alternatively as ”golden fishes”, “speckled fishes”, “black fishes”, “black pizen”, “bread mutton and poison”, “cold poison, cold poultry”, “cold pie and cold coffee” and (alarmingly for the beer-drinkers among us) “ale”. The murderer, where identified, is usually the victim’s sweetheart (variously called Mary, Polly, Betsy and Julia) or grandmother, but very occasionally it’s his wife or sister. She is to be punished using variations on the rope / halter / gallows / scaffold theme, or awarded “the Key of Hell’s gate”, or alternatively to have “her bones burned brown” by “ten thousand weights of brimstone”. Sometimes she’s even threatened with the Monty Python-esque punishment “bullrushes”.

Seeking a set of lyrics to set to Mrs. Lock's tune, and faced with these bewildering alternatives, I decided to work with a single text that could be regarded as ‘typical’, and settled on that notated from Eva Warner Case, Harrison County, Missouri, in 1916. This has the feel of being closer to the ancestral story than some of the English variants.