The Broomfield Hill

The Text is taken from Scott's Minstrelsy (1803). It would be of great interest if we could be sure that the reference to 'Hive Hill' in 8.1 was from genuine Scots tradition. In Wager's comedy The Longer thou Lived the more Fool thou art (about 1568) Moros sings a burden:--

    'Brome, brome on hill,
    The gentle brome on hill, hill,
    Brome, brome on Hive hill,
    The gentle brome on Hive hill,
    The brome stands on Hive hill a.'

Before this date 'Brume, brume on hil' is mentioned in The Complaynt of Scotlande, 1549; and a similar song was among Captain Cox's 'ballets and songs, all auncient.'


The Story, of a youth challenging a maid, and losing his wager by being laid asleep with witchcraft, is popular and widespread. In the Gesta Romanorum is a story of which this theme is one main incident, the other being the well-known forfeit of a pound of flesh, as in the Merchant of Venice. Ser Giovanni (Pecorone, IV. 1) tells a similar tale, and other variations are found in narrative or ballad form in Iceland, Sweden, Denmark, Italy, and Germany.

Grimm notes the German superstition that the rosenschwamm (gall on the wild rose), if laid beneath a man's pillow, causes him to sleep until it be taken away.


THE BROOMFIELD HILL

    1.
    There was a knight and a lady bright,
        Had a true tryste at the broom;
    The ane gaed early in the morning,
        The other in the afternoon.

    2.
    And ay she sat in her mother's bower door,
        And ay she made her mane:
    'O whether should I gang to the Broomfield Hill,
        Or should I stay at hame?

    3.
    'For if I gang to the Broomfield Hill,
        My maidenhead is gone;
    And if I chance to stay at hame,
        My love will ca' me mansworn.'

    4.
    Up then spake a witch-woman,
        Ay from the room aboon:
    'O ye may gang to the Broomfield Hill,
        And yet come maiden hame.

    5.
    'For when ye gang to the Broomfield Hill,
        Ye'll find your love asleep,
    With a silver belt about his head,
        And a broom-cow at his feet.

    6.
    '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.

    7.
    '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.'

    8.
    She pu'd the broom flower on Hive Hill,
        And strew'd on's white hals-bane,
    And that was to be wittering true
        That maiden she had gane.

    9.
    'O where were ye, my milk-white steed,
        That I hae coft sae dear,
    That wadna watch and waken me
        When there was maiden here?'

    10.
    'I stamped wi' my foot, master,
        And gard my bridle ring,
    But na kin thing wald waken ye,
        Till she was past and gane.'

    11.
    '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.'

    12.
    'I clapped wi' my wings, master,
        And aye my bells I rang,
    And aye cry'd, Waken, waken, master,
        Before the lady gang.'

    13.
    'But haste and haste, my gude white steed.
        To come the maiden till,
    Or a' the birds of gude green wood
        Of your flesh shall have their fill.'

    14.
    'Ye need na burst your gude white steed
        Wi' racing o'er the howm;
    Nae bird flies faster through the wood,
        Than she fled through the broom.'