This ballad is collected in the Roud Folk Index as Roud 31 under the name above, but is known under numerous titles, including "The Trees They Do Grow High", "Young and Growing", "Bonny Boy Is Growing", and "Lord Craigston". Its original publication was under the name "Lady Mary Anne".
In most versions of this song, a daughter complains that her father has betrothed her to a boy several years her junior. (Depending on the version the groom is as young as 12 years old.) The couple have a child and the boy dies -- all before he has ever left his teens. Despite the girl's initial reservations about the union, she is brought low by her young husband's death.
Some believe this song is based on the marriage of young Lord Craighton to Elizabeth Innes, who was several years older than him when they wed. He died in 1634 some three years after the marriage. Undoubtedly, at least some lyrical variants do refer to this marriage, but the scholarly consensus is that the song long predates Craighton's marriage as child marriages were relatively common in the Middle Ages and there are much earlier similar historical cases.
