Uploaded December 2025 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Leslie should be well across the Bifrost Bridge by now, if not already sharing a horn of mead and singing for the Gods and Heroes in Valhalla.
Here is the version from 'Serious Steel':
youtube.com/watch?v=gacI1MUS-_8
Thumbnail is 'Wild Hunt of Odin' by Peter Nicolai Arbo.
Leslie should be well across the Bifrost Bridge by now, if not already sharing a horn of mead and singing for the Gods and Heroes in Valhalla.
Here is the version from 'Serious Steel':
youtube.com/watch?v=gacI1MUS-_8
Thumbnail is 'Wild Hunt of Odin' by Peter Nicolai Arbo.
![The Cruel Mother [ Child Ballad No. 20 ]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/W4t2C2Tr84M/mqdefault.jpg "The Cruel Mother [ Child Ballad No. 20 ]
The beautiful painting is by Bertha Wegmann:
https://bruun-rasmussen.dk/m/news/117_berthawegmann
The ballad is on a terrible topic. I have used part of the K and L variants in Child:
https://archive.org/details/englishandscotti01chiluoft/page/n237/mode/2up
This song inspired an album:
https://ozfolklounge.bandcamp.com/album/cruel-mothers
#ChildBallads
Purchase my music:
https://ozfolklounge.bandcamp.com/
Website (Lyrics and Chords):
https://www.folklounge.org/lyrics-and-chords/")
![Earl Brand [ Child Ballad No. 7 ]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/WTCMQimgR_s/mqdefault.jpg "Earl Brand [ Child Ballad No. 7 ]
I know some purists get upset when I make up new tunes for these ballads, so I have transcribed the tune from John Stokoe and John Collingwood Bruces 1965 Northumbrian Minstrelsy under the title The Brave Earl Brand and the King of Englands Daughter and done my best to at least match some of it.
Northumbrian Mistrelsy:
https://archive.org/details/northumbrianmins0000jcol
This appears in the Francis Child collection with six versions, and what I sing is closest to the A variant:
https://archive.org/details/englishscottishp01chil_0
This appears in William Motherwell, 1827, as The Douglas Tragedy, but starts once the lady is looking over her shoulder:
https://archive.org/details/bib_fict_706109
The thumbnail is from a painting by Agnes Slott-Møller which is titled, Ribold and Guldborg, which is the Danish story/ballad that many scholars suggest as the original source for this collection of ballads.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnes_Slott-M%C3%B8ller
Purchase my music:
https://ozfolklounge.bandcamp.com/
Website (Lyrics and Chords):
https://www.folklounge.org/lyrics-and-chords/")
