The Ballad of the Broomfield Hill
by Phillips Barry
The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 24, No. 91 (Jan. - Mar., 1911), pp. 14-15
THE BALLAD OF THE BROOMFIELD HILL
BY PHILLIPS BARRY
Six versions of "The Broomfield Hill" are to be found in Professor Child's " English and Scottish Popular Ballads " (No. 43). The ballad is still current in England,[1] and cannot have been extinct in America in 1846, when the following version appeared in a printed song-book.[2] This version must be ascribed to oral tradition. One naturally expects as have fallen under the influence of Grub Street; but sometimes, as in the present instance, one meets with a folk-singer's version quite untouched by the pen of the shoddy minstrel.
GREEN BROOM FIELD
I. I'll lay you down five hundred pounds,
Five hundred pounds to ten,
That a maid can't go to the green broom field,
And a maid return again.
2. Then quickly speaks a pretty girl,
Her age was scarce sixteen,
Saying, a maid I'll go to the green broom field,
And a maid I'll still be seen.
3. Then when she went to the green broom field,
Where her love was fast asleep,
With a grey goose hawk and a green laurel bough,
And a green broom under his feet.
4. She then plucked a sprig from out the green broom,
And smelt'd of it so sweet,
She sprinkled a handful over his head,
And another under his feet.
5. And when she had done what she thought to do,
She turned her steps away,
She hid herself in a bunch of green brooms,
To hear what her true love would say.
6. And when he awoke from out of his sleep,
An angry man was he,
He looked to the east and he looked to the west
And he wept for his sweetheart to see.
7. Oh ! where was you, my grey goose hawk,
The hawk that I lov'd so dear,
That you did not awake me from out of my sleep,
When my sweetheart was so near.
8. Come saddle me my milk-white steed,
Come saddle me my brown,
Come saddle me the fleetest horse,
That ever rode through town.
9. You need not saddle your milk-white steed,
You need not saddle your brown,
For a hare never ran through the street so fast
As the maid ran through the town.
10. If my hawk had awaked me when I was asleep,
Of her I would had my will,
Or the vultures that fly in the wood by night,
Of her flesh should have had their fill.
BOSTON, MASS.
1. Journal of the Folk-Song Society, iv, pp. Ilo-I16.
2. The Pearl Songster (New York, C. P. Huestis, Publisher, 1o4 Nassau St., corner
of Ann, 1846), p. 34.