My conclusion is that this began as a real story about a woman who murdered her sister over a love triangle. She pushed her sister into a river estuary near a tide mill where she drowned and her body was later recovered by the miller and his daughter who left it on the shore to decompose. The sisters may have been royalty as it may have been from the pre Roman era when there wasn't any written record of the event. Otherwise, the event may have occurred around the mid 1500s after the tide mills were taken from the monasteries and were likely owned by the king or some wealthy lord and run by peasants.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissolutio...onasteries
Perhaps these sisters had wealthy and important parents and were being courted by a wealthy land owner. He choose one over the other and the older sister lost out on more wealth and status and so she killed the younger one and blamed the "dreadful wind and rain" for the "accidental death". The body floated around until retrieved by the miller who probably took the girls belongings and kept quiet until a traveling bard found the remains and then later composed a song that implicated the sister in the death.
Actually I like this story, the bard can be like an investigative journalist looking for a juicy story to use in a ballad. He finds the body, questions the miller and then hears the story of the dead sister and finds out more when he performs for the local lordship and his family.
Quote:The dissolution of the monasteries, occasionally referred to as the suppression of the monasteries, was the set of administrative and legal processes between 1536 and 1541 by which Henry VIII disbanded monasteries, priories, convents, and friaries in England, Wales, and Ireland, expropriated their income, disposed of their assets, and provided for their former personnel and functions
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissolutio...onasteries
Perhaps these sisters had wealthy and important parents and were being courted by a wealthy land owner. He choose one over the other and the older sister lost out on more wealth and status and so she killed the younger one and blamed the "dreadful wind and rain" for the "accidental death". The body floated around until retrieved by the miller who probably took the girls belongings and kept quiet until a traveling bard found the remains and then later composed a song that implicated the sister in the death.
Actually I like this story, the bard can be like an investigative journalist looking for a juicy story to use in a ballad. He finds the body, questions the miller and then hears the story of the dead sister and finds out more when he performs for the local lordship and his family.
A trail goes two ways and looks different in each direction - There is no such thing as a timid woodland creature - Whatever does not kill you leaves you a survivor - Jesus is NOT a bad word - MSB