The Wind Hath Blown My Plaid Away- Child 2. The Elfin Knight; Version A, c.1670
[From English and Scottish Popular Ballads by F.J. Child, Volume 1, 1882, Child No. 2, Version A. Child's notes follow. Child gives the last stanza first (with no number), presuming it to be a burden or repeated stanza. Although there is no imprint on A, the broadside, it was probably printed in London considering its date and based on an earlier (Scottish?) text. Only the opening and impossible tasks are corroborated by Scottish tradition, the last three stanzas are surely the work of the broadside writer.
R. Matteson 2011/2018]
A broadside in black letter, "printed, I suppose," says Pinkerton," about 1670, "bound up with five other pieces at the end of a copy of Blind Harry's 'Wallace,' Edin. 1673, in the Pepysian Library.
A. 'A proper new ballad entituled The Wind hath blown my Plaid away, or, A Discourse betwixt a young [Wo]man and the Elphin Knight;' a broad side in black letter in the Pepysian library, bound up at the end of a copy of Blind Harry's 'Wallace,' Edin. 1673.
Pinkerton gave the first information concerning A, in Ancient Scotish Poems ... from the manuscript collections of Sir Richard Maitland, etc., II, 496, and he there printed the first and last stanzas of the broadside. Motherwell printed the whole in the appendix to his Minstrelsy, No I. What stands as the last stanza in the broadside is now prefixed to the ballad, as having been the original burden. It is the only example, so far as I remember, which our ballads afford of a burden of this kind, one that is of greater extent than the stanza with which it was sung, though this kind of burden seems to have been common enough with old songs and carols.
All that was required of the burden, Mr. Chappell kindly writes me, was to support the voice by harmonious notes under the melody; it was not sung after each half of the stanza, or after the stanza, and it was heard separately only when the voices singing the air stopped. Even the Danish ballads exhibit but a few cases of these "burden-stems," as Grundtvig calls them: see Danmarks Gamle Folkeviser, 221, B.
The Wind hath blown my Plaid away
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,
Ba, ba, ba, lilli ba
He blowes it where he lyketh best.
The wind hath blown my plaid awa
3 'I wish that horn were in my kist,
Ba, ba, ba, lilli ba
Yea, and the knight in my armes two.'
The wind hath blown my plaid awa
4 She had no sooner these words said,
Ba, ba, ba, lilli ba
When that the knight came to her bed.
The wind hath blown my plaid awa
5 'Thou art over young a maid,' quoth he,
Ba, ba, ba, lilli ba
'Married with me thou il wouldst be.'
The wind hath blown my plaid awa
6 'I have a sister younger than I,
Ba, ba, ba, lilli ba
And she was married yesterday.'
The wind hath blown my plaid awa
7 'Married with me if thou wouldst be,
Ba, ba, ba, lilli ba
A courtesie thou must do to me.
The wind hath blown my plaid awa
8 'For thou must shape a sark to me,
Ba, ba, ba, lilli ba
Without any cut or heme,' quoth he.
The wind hath blown my plaid awa
9 'Thou must shape it knife-and-sheerlesse,
Ba, ba, ba, lilli ba
And also sue it needle-threedlesse.'
The wind hath blown my plaid awa
10 'If that piece of courtesie I do to thee,
Ba, ba, ba, lilli ba
Another thou must do to me.
The wind hath blown my plaid awa
11 'I have an aiker of good ley-land,
Ba, ba, ba, lilli ba
Which lyeth low by yon sea-strand.
The wind hath blown my plaid awa
12 'For thou must eare it with thy horn,
Ba, ba, ba, lilli ba
So thou must sow it with thy corn.
The wind hath blown my plaid awa
13 'And bigg a cart of stone and lyme,
Ba, ba, ba, lilli ba
Robin Redbreast he must trail it hame.
The wind hath blown my plaid awa
14 'Thou must barn it in a mouse-holl,
Ba, ba, ba, lilli ba
And thrash it into thy shoes soll.
The wind hath blown my plaid awa
15 'And thou must winnow it in thy looff,
Ba, ba, ba, lilli ba
And also seck it in thy glove.
The wind hath blown my plaid awa
16 'For thou must bring it over the sea,
Ba, ba, ba, lilli ba
And thou must bring it dry home to me.
The wind hath blown my plaid awa
17 'When thou hast gotten thy turns well done,
Ba, ba, ba, lilli ba
Then come to me and get thy sark then.'
The wind hath blown my plaid awa
18 'I'l not quite my plaid for my life;
Ba, ba, ba, lilli ba
It haps my seven bairns and my wife.'
The wind shall not blow my plaid awa
19 'My maidenhead I'l then keep still,
Ba, ba, ba, lilli ba
Let the elphin knight do what he will.'
The wind's not blown my plaid awa