Fondebrider and Gambolini also suggest the case of the sixth Count of Chester, poisoned by his wife in 1232, as a possible source. The names of the character are usually different: Lord Rendall, Lord Randal, Lord Ronald, Laird Rowland, Lord Reynolds, etc. and even John Randolph in a version collected in the US state of Virginia and McDonald in one that is still sung in South Carolina. Naturally, the music is never exactly the same and the texts range from Scott’s version, in which the entire poisoning process (and even the death of the dog that ate the leftovers) is narrated step by step, to those by the famous countertenors Alfred and Mark Deller, accompanied by Desmond Dupré on the lute and guitar in “Folksongs” (originally released in 1972 and recently made available on CD by harmonia mundi) and the distinguished Andreas Scholl, another countertenor who recorded it in 1996. In Scholl’s version, the lover’s intention is ambiguous, the poisoning is never directly mentioned, and everything is vaguely suggested. However, the inheritance the Lord will leave his family is listed in detail and in the last strophe, when the mother asks: “What will you leave your lover, Rendall my son?” he answers “A rope to hang her, mother”.

Eels

Discussions regarding the origins of the song raise some issues and contradictions that need to be considered. The reason why the scholar Albert B. Friedman considers the song possibly arrived in England and Scotland from Italy is almost chauvinistic. In his opinion, Italians are famous for being poisoners, while the English turn to other weapons (without specifying which). However, there are two details that bring his hypothesis into question. On the one hand, if the song does in fact refer to a true story (and the sources record two such possibilities, for lack of one) poisonings wouldn’t have been such unusual occurrences in England as he states. Moreover, the possibility that some of these events, which occurred during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, had remained in people’s memories waiting for the arrival of an Italian song with a similar theme, 300 years later, is highly improbable. But the other detail is even more important - eels.

In all the song’s versions, including those surviving in North-American folklore (such as that sung by Joan Baez and by Buffy Saint-Marie), eels are the cause of the poisoning. “Eels and dill” in the version sung by Scholl, “eel stew” or “boiled eels” in the two compiled by Friedman, and “fried eels” in Scott’s. Eels form a much greater part of the diet in northern Europe (and, in particular, that of the Vikings and the Germans) than in Italy. Following Friedman’s nationalistic interpretation, Italians have traditionally preferred to poison using mysterious powders or very elaborate filters capable of inducing a sleep of the kind from which one does not wake up.