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The Famous Flower of Serving-Men or The Lady turned Serving-Man is Child ballad number 106〔Francis James Child, ''English and Scottish Popular Ballads'', ("The Famous Flower of Serving Men" )〕 and a murder ballad. Child considered it as closely related to the ballad The Lament Of The Border Widow or The Border Widow's Lament.〔Francis James Child, ''The English and Scottish Popular Ballads'', v 2, p 429, Dover Publications, New York 1965〕 ==Synopsis== A woman's husband and child are killed by agents of her mother (or, sometimes, stepmother). The woman buries them, cuts her hair, changes her name from "Fair Elise" or "Fair Elinor" to "Sweet William", and goes to the king's court to become his servant. She serves him well enough to become his chamberlain. The song variants split, sharply, at this point. The common variant has the king going to hunt and being led into the forest by a white hind. The king reaches a clearing and the hind vanishes. A bird, the personification of the woman's dead husband, then appears and laments what has happened to his love. The king asks, and the bird tells the story. The king returns and kisses his chamberlain, still dressed as a man, to the shock of the assembled court. In many versions the woman's mother/stepmother is then executed, possibly by burning, and usually the king marries the woman. In some versions the king goes hunting, and the woman laments her fate, but is overheard; when the king is told it, he marries her. In ''The Border Widow's Lament'', the woman laments, in very similar verses, the murder of her husband by the king; she buries him and declares she will never love another. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「The Famous Flower of Serving-Men」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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