Young Beichan

Illustration by Arthur Rackham: Burd Isbel woken by Belly Blin, with the warning that Young Beckie is about to marry.

Beichan is born in London but travels to far lands. He is taken prisoner, with different captors appearing in different variations, usually being a Moor, though sometimes the king of France after Beichan fell in love with his daughter. Lamenting his fate, Beichan promises to be a son to any married woman who will rescue him, or a husband to an unmarried one. The daughter of his captor rescues him, and he leaves, promising to marry her.

He does not return. She sets out after him—in some variants, because warned by a household spirit, Belly Blin, that he is about to marry—and arrives as he is marrying another. In some variants, he is constrained to marry; often he is fickle. His porter tells him of a woman at his gate, and he instantly realizes it is the woman who rescued him. He sends his new bride home and marries her.

Elinborg waiting for Paetur, in a Faroese variant.

This ballad is also known in Norse, Spanish, and Italian variants.[2]

In a Scandinavian variant, "Harra Pætur og Elinborg" (CCF 158, TSB D 72), the hero set out on a pilgrimage, after asking the heroine, his betrothed, how long she would wait for him; she says, eight years. After the eight years, she sets out and the rest of the ballad is the same, except that Paetur has a reason for his fickleness: he was magically made to forget.[3]

The motif of a hero magically made to forget his love and remembering her on her appearance is common; it may even have been dropped from "Young Beichan", as the hero always returns to the heroine with a promptness of an enchantment breaking.[4] Other folktales with this motif include "Jean, the Soldier, and Eulalie, the Devil's Daughter", "The Two Kings' Children", "The Master Maid", "Anthousa, Xanthousa, Chrisomalousa", "Snow-White-Fire-Red", "The True Bride", and "Sweetheart Roland".

In 1908 Percy Grainger made several wax cylinder recordings of traditional singers singing the ballad. Several of these were recorded in Lincolnshire (including one version by Joseph Taylor) and one in Gloucestershire; all of the recordings are available courtesy of the British Library Sound Archive.[5][6][7][8] Dozens of other traditional versions were recorded across England later in the twentieth century.[9] Several of these, some of which are fragments, can be heard on the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library, including a version the Dorset traveller Caroline Hughes sang to Ewan McColl and Peggy Seeger in the 1960s,[10] a 1967 performance by a Frank Smith of Edenbridge, Kent,[11] and a 1960 version sung by Tom Willet of Ashford, Surrey.[12]

The Scottish traditional singer Jeannie Robertson sang a version to Peter Kennedy in 1958,[13] whilst Bella Higgins sang another to Hamish Henderson in 1955.[14] Several other Scottish recordings were made, including some recorded by James Madison Carpenter which are also available on the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library.[15][16]

The influential Appalachian folk singer Jean Ritchie had her family version of the ballad recorded several times, including on her album Ballads from her Appalachian Family Tradition (1961).[17][18] Her fellow Appalachian Nimrod Workman sang his own traditional version on different occasions,[19] including on a YouTube video uploaded by the official Alan Lomax archive channel.[20] Other noted Appalachian musicians, such as Aunt Molly Jackson (1935),[21] Eliza Pace (1937),[22] Virgil Sturgill (1958)[23] and Buna Hicks (1961)[24] had traditional versions recorded.

The folklorist Helen Hartness Flanders recorded many versions in her native New England,[25] and Canadian collectors including Helen Creighton and Kenneth Peacock recorded several versions in Newfoundland and Nova Scotia.[26]

• Jean Ritchie on British Traditional Ballads in the Southern Mountains—Child Ballads, Vol 1 (1961)
• Ewan MacColl on The English and Scottish Popular Ballads (Child Ballads)—Vol. 2 (1964) (as "Young Beichan")
• Peter Bellamy on The Fox Jumped Over The Parson's Gate (1969)
• New Lost City Ramblers on Remembrance of Things to Come (1966)
• Nic Jones on Nic Jones (1971) (as "Lord Bateman")
• The New Golden Ring on Five Days Singing, Volume 1 (1971) (as "Lord Bateman")
• Steve Ashley on Stroll On (1974) (as "Lord Bateman")
• Planxty on Words and Music (1983) (as "Lord Baker")
• Broadside Electric on More Bad News ... (1996) (as "Lord Bateman")
• June Tabor on On Air (1998)
• Susan McKeown on Lowlands (2000) (as "Lord Baker")
• Sinéad O'Connor on Sean-Nós Nua (2002) (as "Lord Baker")
• Jim Moray on Sweet England (2003) (as "Lord Bateman")
• Chris Wood on The Lark Descending (2005) (as "Lord Bateman")
• John Kirkpatrick on Make No Bones (2007)
• The Askew Sisters on Through Lonesome Woods (as "Lord Bateman") (2010)

• Hind Horn
• List of the Child Ballads

• "Young Beichan"
• "Lord Beigham", 19th-century broadside
• Video of a gradually scrolling panorama of illustrations of this ballad that arrive inside a stationary frame when the lyrics that they illustrate are sung.