The Broomfield Hill

Child #43A

      D     A            D    A
There was a knight and a lady bright
      D          A      D A
Had a true tryst at the broom;
    D        G            D       A
The ane gaed early in the morning and
    G            A    D
The other in the afternoon.


    D                  G              A
And aye she sat at her mother's bower door
    D       A        D A
And aye she made her mane:
     D       A         D          G
"Oh, shall I go to the Broomfield Hill
   D       A        D
Or shall I tarry at hame?


"For if I gang to the Broomfield Hill
My maidenhead is gone,
And if I chance to stay at home,
My love will call me mansworn."

Up there spake a witch woman
Aye from the broom aboon:
"Oh, ye might gang to the Broomfield Hill
And yet come a maiden home.

"For when ye gang to the Broomfield Hill
You'll find your love asleep,
With a silver belt about his head
And a broom-bush at his feet.

"Take ye the blossoms of the broom,
The blossom it smells sweet,
And strew it all about his head
And likewise at his feet.

"Take ye the ring from your finger,
Place it on his right hand,
That he might know, when he is awake,
That his love was at his command."

She plucked the blossom on hyve hill
And strewed it on his house-bane,
And that was to be widdering true
That a maiden she had gane.

She took the ring from her finger
And put it on his right hand,
That he might know, when he did awake,
That his love was at his command.

Then homeward went this maiden gay
And homeward through the broom;
The young knight wakened from his sleep
To find the maiden gone.


Child's version A, from Scott's Minstrelsy, III, 271, ed. 1803.