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Publication date
1595
Language
English
Comments
[Roud 288; Laws Q34; Ballad Index LQ34; Bodleian Roud 288; Wiltshire 696, 998, 999; trad.]
The traditional children's tale is of two children abandoned in a wood, who die and are covered with leaves by robins. It was first published as an anonymous broadside ballad by Thomas Millington in Norwich in 1595 with the title "The Norfolk gent his will and Testament and howe he Commytted the keepinge of his Children to his own brother whoe delte most wickedly with them and howe God plagued him for it". The tale has been reworked in many forms; it frequently appears attributed as a Mother Goose rhyme. Starting around 1840, The "Babes in the Wood" (or "Norfolk Tragedy"), was included in The Ingoldsby Legends, an exceptionally popular miscellany of folklore and poetry, reprinted throughout the nineteenth century. The anonymous ballad was also illustrated by Randolph Caldecott in a book published in 1879.
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