An eleven-year-old girl fell in love with him, but nine months later, called on him to saddle horses, take her dowry, and flee with her.
Francis James Child described this ballad as particularly ill-preserved in its Scottish form, requiring consulting foreign variants even to be sure of the plot.
[1] One of its variants was so corrupted as to be barely distinguishable from "Sheath and Knife", Child Ballad 16, which laments a death in the same language.
[2] The foreign variants of this ballad include Scandinavian, German, and French forms.
[3] The heroine's difficulty riding, because of her advanced pregnancy, also features in some Scandavian variants of "Gil Brenton".