The Elfin Knight

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Versions of
The Elfin Knight

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"The Elfin Knight" (Child #2; Roud #12) is a traditional Scottish folk ballad of which there are many versions, all dealing with supernatural occurrences, and the commission to perform impossible tasks.

The song "Scarborough Fair" is a later variant. A similar variant is "Whittingham Fair", a song that was popular in the north and west of Northumberland. There are also several American variants, which differ greatly, among them "My Father Had an Acre of Land", "The Parsley Vine", and "The Shirt of Lace".

2133344The Elfin Knight

Versions of The Elfin Knight include:

"The Elfin Knight" in The English and Scottish Popular Ballads ed. by Francis James Child (19th Century).
- Variant A (My plaid awa, my plaid awa)
- Variant B (My plaid awa, my plaid awa)
- Variant C (There stands a knicht at the tap o yon hill)
- Variant D (The Elfin knight stands on yon hill)
- Variant E (The Elfin Knight sits on yon hill)
- Variant F (Did ye ever travel twixt Berwick and Lyne?)
- Variant G (Can you make me a cambrick shirt)
- Variant H (Come, pretty Nelly, and sit thee down by me)
- Variant I (A Lady wonned on yonder hill)
- Variant J (Now you are a-going to Cape Ann)
- Variant K (My father left me three acres of land)
- Variant L (My father gave me an acre of land)
- Variant M (As I went up to the top o yon hill)
"The Task" in A Book of Nursery Songs and Rhymes (ed.) by Sabine Baring-Gould (1895).