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Reprinted from A Collection of Curious Old Ballads and Miscellaneous Poetry, Edinburgh. David Webster, 1824.

Other versions are given in Motherwell's Minstrelsy, (see the Appendix to this volume;) Kinloch's Ancient Scottish Ballads, (p.145;) Buchan's Ancient Ballads, (ii. 296.)

Similar collections of impossibilities in The Trooper and Fair Maid, Buchan, i. 230; Robin's Tesment, id., i. 273, or Aytoun, 2d ed. ii. 197; As I was walking under a grove, Pills to purge Melancholy, v. 370. See also post, vol. ii. 224, 352, vol. iv. 132, 287; and in German, Von eitel unmöglichen Dingen, Erk's Liederhort, p. 334–37; Uhland, Eitle Dinge, No. 4, A, B; Wunderhorn, ii. 410.

The Elfin knight sits on yon hill,

Ba, ba, ba, lillie ba. He blaws his horn baith loud and shrill. The wind hath blawn my plaid awa.

He blaws it east, he blaws it west,

He blaws it where he liketh best.

5 "I wish that horn were in my kist,

Yea, and the knight in my arms niest."

She had no sooner these words said,

Than the knight came to her bed.

"Thou art o'er young a maid," quoth he,

10 "Married with me, that thou would'st be."

"I have a sister, younger than I,

And she was married yesterday."

"Married with me if thou would'st be,

A curtisie thou must do to me.

15 "It's ye maun mak a sark to me,

Without any cut or seam," quoth he;

"And ye maun shape it, knife-, sheerless,

And also sew it needle-, threedless."

"If that piece of courtisie I do to thee,

20 Another thou must do to me.

"I have an aiker of good ley land,

Which lyeth low by yon sea strand;

"It's ye maun till't wi' your touting horn,

And ye maun saw't wi' the pepper corn;

25 "And ye maun harrow't wi' a thorn,

And hae your wark done ere the morn;

"And ye maun shear it wi' your knife,

And no lose a stack o't for your life;

"And ye maun stack it in a mouse hole,

30 And ye maun thrash it in your shoe sole;

"And ye maun dight it in your loof,

And also sack it in your glove;

"And ye maun bring it over the sea, Fair, and clean, and dry to me;

35 "And when that ye have done your wark,

Come back to me, and ye'll get your sark."

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

It haps my seven bairnes and my wife."

"My maidenhead I'll then keep still,

40 Let the Elfin knight do what he will.

"My plaid awa, my plaid away,

And owre the hills and far awa,

And far awa to Norowa',

My plaid shall not be blawn awa."

33, thou must.