“Geordie” is an anonymous ballad dated to the Middle Ages.

Just considering the title, I expect the poem to be about a young man belonging to the Middle Ages era and something he has done.

The layout shows a text divided into 7 quatrains (stanzas of 4 lines each), an alternation of narration and dialogue and a refrain.

The first speaking voice that is introduced to the reader is an unknown person who is walking over the London Bridge one early morning when he/she overhears a maid lamenting for her man, “Geordie”. The maid will switch to be the second speaking voice from stanza number 2 until the very end of the piece of writing: she talks about how her man, Geordie, who is a royal man, is going to be wrongly tried for committing a crime, which is stealing 16 of the King’s royal deers and then selling them in Bohenny, and how she is going to the court to plead for his freedom. But, even though the lady is willing to do anything to justify his man, she is sadly going to be too late and they are going to hang the man using a golden chain.

The rhyme scheme used is a ABCB scheme, and the tone used when the lady talks is malinconic and desperate. The use of the expressions “O” by the second narrator makes the reader feel a sense of sorrow and distress for the maid and Geordie because of their relationship broken by this trial. The repetition of stanzas 2, 4 and 7 emphasize the speaking voice’s pain while talking to herself, almost even praying to God to have her and Geordie’s back on this situation. Actually, the ballad is charachterized by a lot of expressions related to God and Royalty, such as “milk.white steed” in line 9, “my pony” in line 10 or even the fact that Geordie will be hanged using “a golden chain” in line 5, which is something not everyone could afford.