Mary Hamilton
E471658
"Mary Hamilton" is a traditional Scottish folk ballad, famously interpreted by Joan Baez, that tells the tragic story of a lady-in-waiting condemned for infanticide.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Mary Hamilton canonical | 2 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T4808085 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Mary Hamilton Context triple: [Joan Baez, Vol. 2, hasTrack, Mary Hamilton]
-
A.
Mary Orr
Mary Orr was an American writer and playwright best known for her short story “The Wisdom of Eve,” which inspired the classic film All About Eve.
-
B.
Mary Morison
Mary Morison is a lyrical love poem by Scottish poet Robert Burns, celebrated for its tender expression of youthful affection and longing.
-
C.
Catherine Gordon
Catherine Gordon was a Scottish heiress and the mother of the Romantic poet Lord Byron, whose troubled marriage and financial difficulties influenced his early life.
-
D.
Catherine Melville
Catherine Melville was a 19th-century American woman best known as a sister of the novelist Herman Melville.
-
E.
Mary Foy
Mary Foy was an American film industry figure associated with early Hollywood, known in part through her connection to producer-director Bryan Foy of the pioneering "Seven Little Foys" show business family.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Mary Hamilton Target entity description: "Mary Hamilton" is a traditional Scottish folk ballad, famously interpreted by Joan Baez, that tells the tragic story of a lady-in-waiting condemned for infanticide.
-
A.
Mary Orr
Mary Orr was an American writer and playwright best known for her short story “The Wisdom of Eve,” which inspired the classic film All About Eve.
-
B.
Mary Morison
Mary Morison is a lyrical love poem by Scottish poet Robert Burns, celebrated for its tender expression of youthful affection and longing.
-
C.
Catherine Gordon
Catherine Gordon was a Scottish heiress and the mother of the Romantic poet Lord Byron, whose troubled marriage and financial difficulties influenced his early life.
-
D.
Catherine Melville
Catherine Melville was a 19th-century American woman best known as a sister of the novelist Herman Melville.
-
E.
Mary Foy
Mary Foy was an American film industry figure associated with early Hollywood, known in part through her connection to producer-director Bryan Foy of the pioneering "Seven Little Foys" show business family.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (47)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
Child ballad
ⓘ
Scottish folk song ⓘ traditional ballad ⓘ |
| associatedWithMonarchy | Scottish court ⓘ |
| category |
songs about capital punishment
ⓘ
songs about crime ⓘ songs based on legend or historical events ⓘ traditional Scottish songs ⓘ |
| ChildBalladNumber | 173 ⓘ |
| collectedIn |
Francis James Child collection
ⓘ
linked to:
The English and Scottish Popular Ballads
|
| countryOfOrigin | Scotland ⓘ |
| culturalOrigin | Scottish oral tradition ⓘ |
| documentationBy | Francis James Child ⓘ |
| ending | execution of Mary Hamilton ⓘ |
| firstKnownPublicationCentury | 19th century ⓘ |
| genre |
folk ballad
ⓘ
murder ballad ⓘ |
| includedInRepertoireOf | 1960s folk revival singers ⓘ |
| influence | modern folk revival repertoire ⓘ |
| language | English ⓘ |
| mainCharacter | Mary Hamilton ⓘ |
| mainCharacterRole | lady-in-waiting ⓘ |
| motif |
gallows speech
ⓘ
public confession ⓘ royal lover ⓘ unwed mother ⓘ |
| narrativePerspective | first-person confession in many versions ⓘ |
| narrativeTheme |
capital punishment
ⓘ
court scandal ⓘ female tragedy ⓘ infanticide ⓘ |
| notableRecordingArtist | Joan Baez ⓘ |
| performancePractice | often sung unaccompanied or with simple guitar accompaniment ⓘ |
| performedBy |
Ewan MacColl
ⓘ
Joan Baez ⓘ Martin Carthy ⓘ Peggy Seeger ⓘ The Corries ⓘ |
| plotSummary | A lady-in-waiting at the royal court is condemned to death for killing her newborn child. ⓘ |
| recordedOnAlbum |
Joan Baez, Vol. 2
ⓘ
linked to:
album "Joan Baez, Vol. 2"
|
| recordingEra | 20th century ⓘ |
| relatedTopic |
Scottish ballad tradition
ⓘ
infanticide in folklore ⓘ women in traditional song ⓘ |
| setting | royal court ⓘ |
| subjectMatter | execution of a servant for killing her illegitimate child ⓘ |
| traditionalStatus | traditional (author unknown) ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Mary Hamilton Description of subject: "Mary Hamilton" is a traditional Scottish folk ballad, famously interpreted by Joan Baez, that tells the tragic story of a lady-in-waiting condemned for infanticide.
Referenced by (2)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
subject linked to:
album "Joan Baez, Vol. 2"