ANALYSIS OF LORD RANDAL

This is a typical English ballad. From the title the reader understands it will deal with a knight or a man belonging to aristocracy called Lord Randal and therefore he expects the ballad to be about a battle or a supernatural event.

This ballad is made up of ten quatrains. It is wholly structured with a dialogue between Lord Randal and his mother. In each stanza the first two lines consists of a mother's question and the following two lines are Randal's answers.

The first stanza, by the dialogue between the two protagonists, tells the beginning of the story. Lord Randal's mother asks him where he has been and he tells her he has been hunting in the greenwood and now he feels very tired. Then he says he has met his own "true love" who has given him and his hounds something to eat. But during the way back his hounds fall and dye so the reader understands they have been poisoned by that who seemed to be Randal's love but instead was a fairy of the wood. Indeed in the sixth stanza this idea is explained by the protagonist who understand what has really happened. While the first five lines are a retelling of Randal's adventure in the wood, the next five lines look to the future because Randal tells his mother which part of his possesions will leave to each member of his family. He will leave to his mother twenty cows, to his sister all his gold  and silver and to his brother all his land and power. In the last stanza Lord Randal, before dying, says what he would like to leave to the fairy who has poisoned him and he has mistaken for his true love: he curses her and he wishes her to go to hell.

In this ballad the prevalent figure of speech is incremental repetition. The whole text is structured on it. Indeed the mother's questions follow always the same structure and so do Randal's answers. Therefore the whole ballad also presents a abcc rhyme, where the lines always end in the same way:

"...Lord Randal, myson?"

"...my handsome young man? "

"...Mother, mak my bed soon"

"...and fain wad lie doon".

The language used is simple and concrete and there is a large use of Scottish dialect.

This ballad perfectly shows many features of Medieval mentality. It is about a spuernatural adventure set in a haunted wood, the greenwood. Noboby could go there to hunt and fairies and elves drove them out. This shows medieval passion for supernatural beliefs. Some aspects of Medieval society are shown here too. Lord Randal is perhaps the first son of an aristocratic family and therefore he is served in everything he wants. Indeed he asks his mother to prepare his bed. Moreover also system of inheritance is described. He leaves to his mother what she needs as means of support, to his sister all the money for her dowry and to his brother his possesions. This means that the power was handed down only among men and women were supposed to depend by their family and then to get married.