Pages 98-99

Exercise 1

Lord Randal has returned from hunting in the forest. His mother is waiting for him and sees that there is something wrong, he looks unwell. She questions him and learns where he has been. She suspects that he did not just go hunting but went to meet someone. He reveals that he met his true-love and that she gave him some eels to eat. Then he gave some of the meal to his animals, and they died. The mother concludes that Lord Randal has been poisoned. He agrees and says that not only is he sick but also sick at heart and wants to lie down. The mother is worried about the consequences of his death and wants to know what he will leave to his family. He replies that he will leave twenty milk cows to his mother, gold and silver to his sister, his houses and lands to his brother. When she asks him what his true-love will get, he answers he will leave her hell and fire.

Exercise 2

a. Is the story told in detail or in general terms?

The story is not detailed, probably to the ballad’s style indeed they had to be very simple in order to allow an easier memorization.

b. Which expressions in the first stanza hint at Lord Randal's death?

Wearied, in fact this expression hints at death because before dying we feel tired, we want to lie down.

c. The climax of the story is in the only stanza of the poem which does not contain a question. Identify it and explain why it marks an important turning point.

That’s the sixth stanza, here Lord Randal’s mother understands her son has been poisoned. It marks an important turning point because the core of the plot becomes a homicide.

d. The dialogue focuses on two topics. Which stanzas are about:

           • Lord Randal's meeting in the woods?
                     Stanzas two and three
           • Lord Randal's oral testament?
                     Stanzas seven, eight, nine and ten

Exercise 3

a. Which words in the text point out his position in medieval society?

The fact he went to hunting, because it was a noble activity; then we have the number of possessions he quotes while the testament such as the cows and the lands.

b. Can you explain why a testament is important in this context?

Firstly, because the reader understands the richness of the protagonist, secondly, it’s useful to know Lord Randal’s family and its relationships.

Exercise 4

The mother’s dialogue seems factual, she doesn’t seem to be sad while staring at the dying son. She appears totally interested, but not from the emotion aspect, indeed, the first thing she asks concerns the heredity. Moreover, the reader may be also led to consider the mother as a partner in crime of the true-love.

Exercise 5

The reader might identify the girl as a wicked witch thanks to the cultural medieval contest. Therefore, during Middle Ages, forests became places full of brigands and non-recommended people. Furthermore, the great growing of the trees created a dense undergrowth and usually darkness was associated to devil. These are the reasons why the mediaeval reader may interpret the true love as an evil creature.

Exercise 6

The expression to be sick at the heart.

Exercise 7

Sensational, supernatural or tragic subject matter= the story is told in a tragic and dramatic way. From the text you can tell that Randal is very rich and powerful, sensational

Universal themes= destructive power of love: Randal thinks that the woman in the wood truly loves him, instead she betrays and eventually kills him. Inheritance: it is an important issue especially when the person who dies is rich and powerful

Abrupt beginning and ending= the story begins in media res, with no background information, and ends abruptly

Lack or details or explanations= the story is not described in detail and well explained, in fact the same things are always repeated except with some variations in each stanza

Question-and-answer patter= the mother asks a question and Randal answers it in each stanza.

Short stanzas with a simple rhyme scheme= the stanzas are arranged in 4 lines, with frequent refrains, and the rhyme scheme is AABB, the word that rhymes together are always the same (“son”, “man”/ “soon”, “doon”)

Use the repetitions to slow down the narration and create suspense= “where ha’ you been”/ “wha met you here”/ “what did she give you”/ wha gat your leavins”/ “what becam of them”/ I fear you are poisoned”/ “what d’ye leave to your mother”/ “what d’ye leave to your sister”/ “what d’ye leave to your brother”/ “what d’ye leave to your true-love”/ “for I’m wearied wi’ hunting”/ “for I’m sick at the heart”/“Lord Randal my son”/ “my handsome young man”/ “mother, mak my bed soon”/ “and fain wad lie doon”

Refrain= “Lord Randal my son”/ “my handsome young man”/ “mother, mak my bed soon”, “and fain wad lie doon”

Exercise 8

Lord Randal dies in mysterious circumstances; we don't know how but we can guess. He was probably in love with a girl, for whom he would have done anything, but she did not love him back. Randal was becoming very apprehensive about the girl, and she got fed up with him. So she allied herself with Randal's sister, who was envious of all the power and money her brother had. They decided to tell Randal to find himself in a forest, where he thought he would find his beloved, but in fact he found his sister, who killed him with a gun. Randal's body was never found, but this is the most believable story of the many tall tales that have been told.

Analysis

The ballad is mainly the recording of a dialog. Its structure follows the typical four-line stanza. Its questioning syntax reinforces memory and therefore the ballad was very popular and it also was easy to be handed down.

Right from the title the reader understands the text may be about a man belonging to aristocracy, whose name is Lord Randal.

The ballad is made up of 10 four-line stanzas. All the quatrains end with the same words, so there is always a rhyme between the third and fourth line (“soon”-“doon”). They anticipate and underline the real end of the story, where the protagonist is going to die (lie down) soon.

The ballad consists of the exchange of dialogue between the two main characters: Lord Randal and his mother. This way the narration is more personal, the reader faces with the characters’ true words and can easier understand their feelings.

The first two lines of each quatrain report the mother’s questions and the other two contain the son’s answers. The lines of the ballad are very long and this is probably one of the reasons why their structure is so repetitive.

The first and second lines of each stanza are composed by a question and the addressing “Lord Randal, my son” and “my handsome young man”.

The third line always ends with the words “mother, make my bed soon”.

The fourth line says “For I’m wearied wi’ hunting, and fain wad lie doon” in the first five quatrains and “For I’m sick at the heart, and fain wad lie doon” in the last five ones.

The first quatrain introduces the situation. The mother asks her son where he has been and he answers he has been at the greenwood for hunting. The “greenwood” was a sacred wood ruled by the Queen of fairies and hunting was forbidden without her permission. Then, the young man asks his mother to make his bed soon because he is very tired and wants to have a rest. Repetition, high density of -m sound, refrains and punctuation all together create an atmosphere of suffering and impending death. Right from the start the ballad displays the passionate relationship between mother and son during the Middle Ages: the mother addresses lord Randal as "my handsome young man" making clear he is attractive and young. Of course, the mother's sense of possessiveness is signalled by the repetitive use of the possessive adjective "my". The sound -m is recurrent: seven times in the very first stanzas. It is the typical sound of somebody who is complaining. In the second stanza almost the same from the phonological level.

Lord Randal answers his mother's curiosity: she wants to know where he has been and it appears clear that lord Randal has probably been under a spell: a negative one unfortunately. The intelligent reader can't find clear clues to decide if the semantic choice "true-love" is a parody or the result of an illusion. It appears that people from aristocracy mainly spent their time hunting that is they were not compelled  to gain a living and were generally brought up by people who were supposed to be at their service. The reader understands this immediately by the use of the imperative ten times occurring in the ballad ("make my bad soon"). Men, especially if the first child, detained power, properties and money and as a result women's  life in any family depended on the relationship they had with men. Besides the expression "make my bed soon" lets the intelligent reader suppose there is something wrong with lord Randal's health, texturally probably because lord Randal's "true-love" gave him something dangerous ("eels fried in a pan"). The food sound the typical one given by witches which is maybe masked under the veil of an attractive beautiful woman. This explains for the typical mentality of the Middle Ages, according to which women roles were clearly defined: they could be daughters, wives, mothers or nouns. If they did not conform to such standards they could be considered dangerous. In short, Medieval society established a social division between men and women that still exists and explains for the dominant main roles that civil western society still has. In contemporary society the 70% of female violence is still played inside the family and generally speaking acted by people from male gender. This also explains why Lord Randal necessarily had to be the victim of some supernatural power, symbolically transfigured under the shape of a female witch. Witches played their spells on men in the forest where they generally performed their pagan rites to which common women and men were not invited and punished in case they decided to attend.

The sixth quatrain breaks the atmosphere of the ballad with Lord Randal’s mother’s exclamation: “Oh I fear you are poisoned, Lord Randal, my son”. Lord Randal’s answer is even simpler and more shocking: “Oh yes I am poisoned, mother”. After this revelation, the request “mak my bed soon” is seen from a different perspective: Lord Randal’s tiredness is given by his approaching death and the bed he’s asking for is going to become his grave. Even the last line of the quatrain interrupts his repetition: Lord Randal stops lying saying he is tired with hunting and says the truth to his mother, telling her he is “sick at the heart”. At last, the one who he has met in the wood was probably a fairy who had poisoned him because he was hunting in the sacred wood.

In the last four stanzas the questions of the mother have a different sound: she is no more worried about his son who looked so strange and tired, because she now knows he is going to die soon. She is worried about her and her daughter’s future: they are women and women didn’t have any importance in the Middle Ages once they had not a man next to them. She wants to make her sure they will be able to survive. The son answers he will leave 24 milk cows to his mother and his gold and silver to his sister, that is enough to survive and buy food.

After that, the mother asks about what he is going to leave to his brother and he tells her he will leave him his house and his land, that is all his feudal power and a place to live.

At last, she asks him what he is going to leave to his true love, who has met that day. And Lord Randal answers with anger he will leave her hell and fire.

Therefore Lord Randal is a very interesting text to really understand the mentality of the Middle Ages, it provides the reader information about lifestyle in the social classes, the relationship between man and women inside and outside the family, the position of the oldest son, the role of witchcraft, the economic destiny of a family, the role of animals inside the family, with a distinction between animals in the aristocracy: lord Randal died together with his haunts and hawks, while the common people used to bring up animals to survive, to eat and to work.