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A fragment of this ballad was printed in Herd's Collection, ("I'll wager, I'll wager," i. 226.) The present version is from the Border Minstrelsy, (iii. 28,) and we have added another from Kinloch's Ancient Scottish Ballads. A somewhat longer copy is given in Buchan's Ballads, (ii. 291,) and a modernized English one, of no value, (The West Country Wager,) in Ancient Poems, &c., Percy Society, vol. xvii. p. 116.

Brume, brume on hil, is mentioned in the Complaynt of Scotland, and formed part of Captain Cox's well-known collection.

A Danish ballad exhibits the same theme, though differently treated: Sövnerunerne, Grundtvig, No. 81.

There was a knight and a lady bright,

Had a true tryst at the broom;

The ane ga'ed early in the morning,

The other in the afternoon.

5 And aye she sat in her mother's bower door,

And aye she made her mane,

"O whether should I gang to the Broomfield hill,

Or should I stay at hame?

"For if I gang to the Broomfield hill,

10 My maidenhead is gone;

And if I chance to stay at hame,

My love will ca' me mansworn."—

Up then spake a witch woman,

Aye from the room aboon;

15 "O, ye may gang to Broomfield hill,

And yet come maiden hame.

"For when ye come to the Broomfield hill,

Ye'll find your love asleep,

With a silver belt about his head,

20 And a broom-cow at his feet.

"Take ye the blossom of the broom,

The blossom it smells sweet,

And strew it at your true love's head,

And likewise at his feet.

25 "Take ye the rings off your fingers,

Put them on his right hand,

To let him know, when he doth awake,

His love was at his command."—

She pu'd the broom flower on Hive-hill,

30 And strew'd on's white hals bane,

And that was to be wittering true,

That maiden she had gane.

"O where were ye, my milk-white steed,

That I hae coft sae dear,

35 That wadna watch and waken me,

When there was maiden here?"—

"I stamped wi' my foot, master,

And gar'd my bridle ring;

But nae kin' thing wald waken ye,

40 Till she was past and gane."—

"And wae betide ye, my gay goss hawk,

That I did love sae dear,

That wadna watch and waken me,

When there was maiden here."—

45 "I clapped wi' my wings, master,

And aye my bells I rang,

And aye cry'd, Waken, waken, master,

Before the ladye gang."—

"But haste and haste, my gude white steed,

50 To come the maiden till,

Or a' the birds of gude green wood

Of your flesh shall have their fill."—

"Ye needna burst your gude white steed,

Wi' racing o'er the howm;

55 Nae bird flies faster through the wood,

Than she fled through the broom."