LORD RANDAL
Lord Randal is a medieval anonymous Scottish ballad. Its title introduces the protagonist to the reader and focuses his/her attention on him. The song tells the reader about the story of Lord Randal. One day he went to the greenwood to hunt with his hawks and hounds. There, he met his true-love, who offered him and his animals eels fried in a pan. After returning back home, he told her mother what had happened; he felt very tired and all his animals had died on the way. Only then he realized he had been poisoned. Before dying, he said he left cows, gold, silver, houses and lands to his mother and siblings, while he left hell and fire to his true-love. The ballad reports only the dialogue between Lord Randal and his mother. It is subdivided into two parts; in the first part (stanzas 1-6) Lord Randal tells her mother about the events in the greenwood, while in the second part (stanzas 7-10) he distributes the inheritance.
Probably, the woman who Lord Randal has met is a queen of the fairies of that greenwood. It was commonly thought during the Middle Ages that queens would kill or kidnap unauthorized hunters. He may have been fascinated by the queen's beauty; this explains also the frequent use of repetition and incremental repetition.
However, the lover may be his mother itself. Indeed, she always refers to her son twice: the first time she behaves as a mother and calls him "son", the second time she behaves as a lover, using the expression "handsome young man". This can be proved also by the sixth stanza, when she guesses exactly Lord Randal's poisoning without knowing many details. Besides, the sixth stanza is the only stanza in which she does not ask questions. Moreover, his mother is interested in her son's inheritance and this may justify the murder.
The ballad makes a great use of sound devices, like repetition, incremental repetition, rhyme and refrain. The rhyme scheme is ABCC and all rhymes are composed of the same words (son-man-soon-doon). The last line of every stanza is a refrain: from the sixth stanza it recurs with a variation. Throughout the whole ballad the expression "mother, mak my bed soon" is repeated in the third lines; this highlights the urging of death, through a euphemism.
Lord Randal takes his revenge against his murderer in the 39th line, where he left "hell and fire" for her. Notably, this is the only line of the second part in which Lord Randal repeats the expression "I leave", underpinning his revenge.