"The Broomfield Hill", "The Broomfield Wager" "The Merry Broomfield", "The Green Broomfield", "A Wager, a Wager", or "The West Country Wager" (

Child A child ( : children) is a human being between the stages of birth and puberty, or between the developmental period of infancy and puberty. The legal definition of ''child'' generally refers to a minor, otherwise known as a person younger ...

43,

Roud The Roud Folk Song Index is a database of around 250,000 references to nearly 25,000 songs collected from oral tradition in the English language from all over the world. It is compiled by Steve Roud (born 1949), a former librarian in the London ...

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is a traditional

English folk The folk music of England is a tradition-based music which has existed since the later medieval period. It is often contrasted with courtly, classical and later commercial music. Folk music traditionally was preserved and passed on orally wit ...

ballad A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads derive from the medieval French ''chanson balladée'' or ''ballade'', which were originally "dance songs". Ballads were particularly characteristic of the popular poetry and ...

. (The Roud Index lists a number of other titles.)

Synopsis

In most versions a gentleman, in some versions called Lord John, challenges a maiden to a wager, usually at very high odds: "A wager, a wager with you, pretty maid,
My one hundred pound to your ten"
That a maid you shall go into yonder green broom
But a maid you shall never return" or she makes a tryst and realizes she can either stay and be foresworn, or go and lose her virginity. After, in some versions advice from a witch-wife, or after persuading him to drink "a glass of something so strong" in one version, she goes to the broom field and finds him in a deep sleep. She leaves tokens to show she has been there, and in many versions carries out what seems to be a ritual: "Then three times she went from the crown of his head
And three times from the soles of his feet,
And three times she kissed his red ruby lips
As he lay fast in a sleep."Vaughan Williams, R, and Lloyd, A. L.; The Penguin Book of English Folk Songs; Harmondsworth, 1959 then, after leaving tokens to show she had been there, either leaves quickly or hides in the bushes to watch what happens. He wakes and in some variants taxes those with him — his goshawk, his servingmen, his horse, or his hound — that they did not wake him, but they answer it was impossible. He is angry that he did not manage to take her virginity and, in many variants, murder her afterwards, though in others he says he would have murdered her if she had resisted his intentions: "Had I been awake when my true love was here
Of her I would have had my will
If not, the pretty birds in this merry green broom
Of her blood they should all had her fill." In some variants, she hears this and leaves glad: "Be cheerful, be cheerful, and do not repine.
For now 'tis as clear as the sun.
The money, the money, the money is mine,
And the wager I fairly have won".

Versions

Early published versions

The Broomfield Hill was printed by a number of publishers of

broadside ballads A broadside (also known as a broadsheet) is a single sheet of inexpensive paper printed on one side, often with a ballad, rhyme, news and sometimes with woodcut illustrations. They were one of the most common forms of printed material between the ...

. There are seven in the Bodleian Broadside collection, all fairly similar, with an earliest possible date of 1711. Child included six versions, five of them Scottish and one from an English broadside from the collection compiled by

Francis Douce Francis Douce ( ; 175730 March 1834) was a British antiquary and museum curator. Biography Douce was born in London. His father was a clerk in Chancery. After completing his education he entered his father's office, but soon quit it to devote ...

Versions collected from traditional singers

47 of the 61 examples listed in the Roud Folk Song Index were collected from singers in England, mostly in the south, with 13 from Somerset and 7 from Sussex. Cecil Sharp collected 14 versions from English singers. 7 versions were collected from Scotland and just one from County Antrim, Ireland. Only six were collected from the United States.

Recordings

Recordings by traditional singers

Field recordings by a number of traditional singers have been published. These include

Suffolk Suffolk () is a ceremonial county of England in East Anglia. It borders Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south; the North Sea lies to the east. The county town is Ipswich; other important towns include Lowes ...

singer Cyril Poacher (under the title "Green Broom"); Gordon Hall from Sussex;

Pop Maynard George "Pop" Maynard (6 January 187229 November 1962) was an English folk singer and marbles champion. The folk singer Shirley Collins considers Maynard to have been the "finest traditional English singer, matched only by Harry Cox". Life and ...

Sussex Sussex (), from the Old English (), is a historic county in South East England that was formerly an independent medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom. It is bounded to the west by Hampshire, north by Surrey, northeast by Kent, south by the English ...

, (A Wager, a Wager);

Dorset Dorset ( ; archaically: Dorsetshire , ) is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the unitary authority areas of Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole and Dorset (unitary authority), Dors ...

gypsy singer Carolyne Hughes (A Wager, a Wager); and

Norfolk Norfolk () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and south-west, and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the No ...

singer

Walter Pardon Walter Pardon (4 March 1914 – 9 June 1996) was an English carpenter, folk singer and recording artist from Knapton, Norfolk, England. He learned songs and tunes from older members of his family and remembered and performed them at a time whe ...

Motifs

The woman who enchants a man to sleep and so preserves her virginity is a common folktale and ballad motif throughout Europe.Francis James Child, ''The English and Scottish Popular Ballads'', v 1, p 391-4, Dover Publications, New York 1965

References

Child Ballads 1710s songs English folk songs English broadside ballads 18th-century ballads {{Folk-song-stub