The Elphin Knight

The Text is from a broadside in black letter in the Pepysian Library at Cambridge; bound up at the end of a book published in 1673.

The Story of this ballad but poorly represents the complete form of the story as exhibited in many German and other ballads, where alternate bargaining and riddling ensues between a man and a maid. This long series of ballads is akin to the still longer series in which the person upon whom an impossible task is imposed is considered to have got the mastery by retaliating with another impossible task.

The opening stanzas of this ballad correspond closely with those of Lady Isabel and the Elf-Knight.

THE ELPHIN KNIGHT

My plaid awa, my plaid awa,

And ore the hill and far awa,

And far awa to Norrowa,

My plaid shall not be blown awa.

1.

The elphin knight sits on yon hill,

Ba, ba, ba, lilli-ba

He blaws his horn both lowd and shril.

The wind hath blown my plaid awa

2.

He blowes it east, he blowes it west,

He blowes it where he lyketh best.

3.

'I wish that horn were in my kist,

Yea, and the knight in my armes two.'

4.

She had no sooner these words said,

When that the knight came to her bed.

5.

'Thou art over young a maid,' quoth he,

'Married with me thou il wouldst be.'

6.

'I have a sister younger than I,

And she was married yesterday.'

7.

'Married with me if thou wouldst be,

A courtesie thou must do to me.

8.

'For thou must shape a sark to me,

Without any cut or heme,' quoth he.

9.

'Thou must shape it knife-and-sheerlesse,

And also sue it needle-threedlesse.'

10.

'If that piece of courtesie I do to thee,

Another thou must do to me.

11.

'I have an aiker of good ley-land,

Which lyeth low by yon sea-strand.

12.

'For thou must eare it with thy horn,

So thou must sow it with thy corn.

13.

'And bigg a cart of stone and lyme,

Robin Redbreast he must trail it hame.

14.

'Thou must barn it in a mouse-holl,

And thrash it into thy shoe's soll.

15.

'And thou must winnow it in thy looff,

And also seek it in thy glove.

16.

'For thou must bring it over the sea,

And thou must bring it dry home to me.

17.

'When thou hast gotten thy turns well done,

Then come to me and get thy sark then.'

18.

'I'll not quite my plaid for my life;

It haps my seven bairns and my wife.'

The wind shall not blow my plaid awa

19.

'My maidenhead I'l then keep still,

Let the elphin knight do what he will.'

The wind's not blown my plaid awa