Broomfield Hill

A wager, a wager, five hundred pound and ten

That you'll not go to the Broomfield Hill and a maid return again

And oh she cried, and oh she sighed, and oh she made her moan

Saying "shall I go to the Broomfield Hill or shall I stay at home?

"For if I go to the Broomfield Hill, my maidenhead is gone

"But if I chance to stay at home, why then I am foresworn."

There's thirteen months all in one year, as I've heard people say

But the finest month year in all the year

is the merry, merry month of May

And up there spoke an old witch-woman, as she sits all alone

Saying, "You shall go to the Broomfield hill

and a maid you shall return

"For when you get to the Broomfield Hill,

you will find your lover asleep

"With his silken gown all under his head and a broom-cow

at his feet

"You take the blossom from off of the broom,

the blossom that smells so sweet

"And you lay it down all under his head

and more at the soles of his feet"

There's thirteen months all in one year, as I've heard people say

But the finest month year in all the year

is the merry, merry month of May

Instrumental

And when she got to the Broomfield Hill,

she found her lover asleep

With his hawk and his hound and his silk satin gown

and his ribbons all down to his feet

She's taken the blossom from off of the broom,

the blossom that smells so sweet

And the more she lay it round about,

the sounder he did sleep

She's taken the ribbon from off her finger

and laid it at his right hand

For to let him know when he awoke

that she'd been there at his command

There's thirteen months all in one year,

as I've heard people say

But the finest month year in all the year

is the merry, merry month of May

"Oh where were you my good grey steed,

that I have loved so dear?

"Why did you not stamp and waken me

when there was a maiden here?"

"Oh I stamped with my feet, master, and all my bells I rang

"But there was nothing could waken you til

she had been and gone"

"Oh haste, haste, my good grey steed,

for to come where she may be

"Or all the birds in the Broomfield Hill

will eat their fill of thee."

"Oh you need not break your good grey steed

by racing to her home

"There's no bird flies faster through the wood

than she flew through the broom"

Instrumental

There's thirteen months all in one year, as I've heard people say

But the finest month year in all the year

is the merry, merry month of May