"Bonnie Annie" is Child ballad 24, existing in several variants.

Synopsis

Annie, a merchant's daughter, falls in love with a sea captain and goes to sea with him, in some variants while pregnant. Something goes wrong, and they determine that Annie is the cause of it. She makes the captain throw her overboard. They escape, recover her body, and bury her.

Motifs

The motif of the lots and throwing a person from the ship may be derived from the tale of Jonah

Jonah

Jonah is the name given in the Hebrew Bible to a prophet of the northern kingdom of Israel in about the 8th century BC, the eponymous central character in the Book of Jonah, famous for being swallowed by a fish or a whale, depending on translation...

. Another ballad featuring these motifs is "Brown Robyn's Confession

Brown Robyn's Confession

-Synopsis:Brown Robyn goes to sea. On shipboard, they are unable to see any lights in the sky. They "cast kevels" which indicated that it was because of Brown Robyn. He confesses to incestous relations with his mother and his sister , or, in other variants, to killing his father...

", Child ballad 57.