Young Beichan

Traditional song

"Young Beichan", also known as "Lord Bateman", "Lord Bakeman", "Lord Baker", "Young Bicham" and "Young Bekie", is a traditional folk ballad categorised as Child ballad 53 and Roud 40. The earliest versions date from the late 18th century, but it is probably older, with clear parallels in ballads and folktales across Europe. The song was popular as a broadside ballad in the nineteenth century, and survived well into the twentieth century in the oral tradition in rural areas of most English speaking parts of the world, particularly in England, Scotland and Appalachia.

Beichan, who is often born in London, travels to far lands. He is taken prisoner, with different captors appearing in different variations, usually being a Moor or a Turk, though sometimes the king of France, before falling in love with his captor’s 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. She 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.

This ballad is also known in Norse, Spanish, and Italian variants. 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. 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. This motif is known as The Forgotten Fiancée and appears as a final episode of tales classified in the Aarne Thompson Uther Index as type ATU 313, "The Magic Flight: Girl helps the hero flee". Other folktales with this motif include "Jean, the Soldier, and Eulalie, the Devil's Daughter" (France); "The Two Kings' Children", "The True Bride" and "Sweetheart Roland" (Germany); "The Master Maid" (Norway), "Anthousa, Xanthousa, Chrisomalousa" (Greece) and "Snow White Fire Red" (Sicily). Another British derived folk song, "The Turkish Lady" (Roud 8124), appears to be somewhat related; it didn't diverge recently, being noted as early as 1768.

According to the folklorist Frank Kidson, it has been "asserted, with every appearance of truth" that the protagonist is in fact Gilbert Becket, the father of Saint Thomas Becket, who was supposedly captured in the Crusades as in the ballad, released, and followed to London by a lady he met there. Kidson claimed that "Bateman", "Baker" and "Beichie" were all corruptions of "Beckett". Francis James Child said "That our ballad has been affected by the legend of Gilbert Beket is altogether likely”, suggesting that the two similar stories may have influenced each other.

The ballad was very popular in print in the 1800s, with most broadsides descending from one printed in England around 1815, beginning "Lord Bateman was a noble lord " (see texts below). Dozens of other traditional versions were recorded across England later in the twentieth century. 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, a 1967 performance by a Frank Smith of Edenbridge, Kent, and a 1960 version sung by Tom Willet of Ashford, Surrey. The Scottish traditional singer Jeannie Robertson sang a version to Peter Kennedy in 1958, whilst Bella Higgins sang another to Hamish Henderson in 1955. Several other Scottish recordings were made, including some recorded by James Madison Carpenter which are also available on the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library. 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). Her fellow Appalachian Nimrod Workman sang his own traditional version on different occasions, including on a YouTube video uploaded by the official Alan Lomax archive channel. Other noted Appalachian musicians, such as Aunt Molly Jackson (1935), Eliza Pace (1937), Virgil Sturgill (1958) and Buna Hicks (1961) had traditional versions recorded. The folklorist Helen Hartness Flanders recorded many versions in her native New England, and Canadian collectors including Helen Creighton and Kenneth Peacock recorded several versions in Newfoundland and Nova Scotia.