Consider a song that's at once, a story of female empowerment. Cool. But at the same time, a moral reflection of a rampant patriarchal and classist society – I mean, more so than today – and also a cautionary tale about being too respectful of women. This song is called the Baffled Knight or Blow Away the Morning Dew. It's Roud 11. It's morally difficult, but it's a fun song. Or a horribly violent song in some cultures. And we're going to be talking about it today on a podcast that's been dead for three years. I'm Matt Aukamp. This is Every Folk Song. Stick with us.

 

The first printed composition of the song was published with the title “Yonder Comes A Courteous Knight” in 1609 –that's 409 years ago-- in a collection called Deuteromelia by composer Thomas Ravenscroft. If you dig around for a minute, you can actually find free PDFs of this online, and it's cool, if a little difficult, to look at it. It's one of the first broadside ballads to come paired with music, so it's rad to think that when you hear this:

 

[YONDER COMES A COURTEOUS KNIGHT]

 

It's not so far off from the actual thing that someone in the 16th or 17th century might have been listening to at an alehouse or a fair. Now the original version of the song tells a story of knight happening upon a beautiful woman and just jumping right into the sweet talk. He tells her if he were a King, he'd make her his queen. He says that if he didn't um... have his will of her –which is a very creepy way of putting that... soon he would die. Which, I mean... if “I need to bone you to live” isn't a romantic sentiment, I don't know what is. And then, kinda skipping –pretty conspicuously-- over the woman's response, he starts looking for a place for them to... get down to it. And he can't find anywhere. So she says “If you take me to my father's castle, we can do it in my fancy bed. By the way, I'm a virgin.” I'm paraphrasing a little. But he agrees and he throws her up on his horse and the important thing to note here, is that it says they ride “like sister and like brother.” That'll come up later. They get to the castle, she hops off the horse and slams the gate on him, dropping an insult I had never heard before which is “four-eared fool” which I guess refers to the knight and his horse being a singular dumb entity. So... you know... feel free to yell that at the next equestrian event you happen to attend. You're welcome. She continues to taunt him from within the gate and... what she says... is... “Listen, you had me out there in the field, and then you had me on your horse, and I never said I wasn't game, but you were too chicken to just rip my clothes off and go at it, so you're out of luck.” And, in what I assume is just the song taking another dig at the knight's uh... virility, as it were, he pulls out his sword and wipes the rust off of it ---- and then he delivers his lesson to the listener, which is basically “Listen dudes, when you find that true love, don't worry about decency or her clothing, just get it. Just get it.”

 

And that's the song. Now, maybe you can already see the problematic ideas forming in the embryonic form of this ballad.... As time drags this little baby along, the gender politics become more and more upsetting.

 

The prototypical themes are... the humor in the woman outsmarting the man, getting a free ride home and successfully escaping the uncomfortable situation... and the man being too unassertive to be worthy of love. But we're also looking at a story who's core moral seems to be that silence is consent. Which is... you know... exactly rape culture.

 

I'll tell you this, almost every version of this song ends with a narrated moral. They vary in how horrible they are, but this one I think might be the worst of the bunch. And I reserve the right to change my mind about that ranking later on... Here it is:

 

[THE BALTIMORE CONSORT – YONDER COMES A COURTEOUS KNIGHT]

 

And here it is again, sung apparently by a gang of villains from a play about orphans or some shit:

 

[CITY WAITES – THE BAFFLED KNIGHT]

 

I think right after that clip they probably eat a child.

 

That last clip is from a version called “The Baffled Knight.” This is kind of the parent title of this song family. I think this is probably the second most popular version of this song, and it barely differs from Yonder Comes a Courteous Knight. Plus, it's a bit more catchy of a title, so I can see why they do that. Often, though, the lyrics and melody are identical, like this song below from the Academy of Ancient Music:

 

[ACADEMY OF ANCIENT MUSIC – BAFFLED KNIGHT]

 

That version was directed by the late founder of the Academy of Ancient Music, Christopher Hogwood – sorry, that's just a REALLY good surname-- on their album Music From The Time of Elizabeth I. Their concept is they play all their songs on original instruments from the time period – usually baroque or classical music – and so when we're talking about listening to songs exactly as they may have been heard way back when, this is as close as you're going to get. In the late 1500's, people were jamming to this and Greensleeves and some song called “The Night Watch"

 

I guess at this point in history is where the song begins to spread and change. There's this other version of The Baffled Knight that sounds like this:

 

[LUCY WARD – THE BAFFLED KNIGHT]

 

Recorded in 2013 by a 24-year old Lucy Ward. It's always crazy to me when I find versions of these songs by young people. I mean, I'm young. Not Lucy Ward young, but the whole point of this podcast is tracing the history and legacy of these songs and it's still going. This podcast will be a small curio for someone researching these songs for some kind of future media in the year 2300 --maybe people are coding entertainment into viruses and breathing them in through little gas canisters or whatever-- and some guy goes “It was recorded by our 91st Prime Minister Lucy Ward in 2013, as described here by some dork with a microphone in 2018 named Matt Ow-Comp from some ancient country called The United States of America which I've never heard of.” It's just cool that this stuff is still alive, you know? Anyway, I digress.

 

Blow Away the Morning Dew or Clear Away the Morning Dew is definitely the most popular version of this song today. The oldest written record of this version of the song I can find any reference to is from a book by Thomas d'Urfey called “Wit and Mirth, or Pills to Purge Melancholy” which is a bomb-ass title for a book. And Thomas d'Urfey was an interesting dude. I don't want to take too long here to talk about him, but he was a playwrite and a song writer in the late 1600's and early 1700's that wrote all kinds of bawdy and profane songs. He wrote a 2-part song called “The Fart” about a mysterious fart that happened at a dinner of Queen Anne's court and everyone slowly coming to realize it was the Queen who did it. It's... very long. But like, when you read the opinions of Thomas d'Urfey by people of the era, like Jonathan Swift or Alexander Pope, everyone has the total contempt of him, but a weird respect for how goddamn popular he was. I want to read a piece of a letter written by Alexander Pope to Henry Cromwell about him that I LOVE:

 

“Any man, of any quality, is heartily welcome to the best toping-table of our gentry, who can roundly hum out some fragments or rhapsodies of his works; so that, in the same manner as it was said of Homer to his detractors — What! dares any man speak against him who has given so many men to eat? — , so may it be said of Mr. Durfey to his detractors — Dares any one despise him who has made so many men drink? Alas, sir! this is a glory which neither you nor I must ever pretend to. Neither you, with your Ovid, nor I, with my Statius, can amuse a whole Board of justices and extraordinary squires, or gain one hum of approbation, or laugh of admiration. These things, they would say, are too studious; they may do well enough with such as love reading, but give us your ancient poet Mr. Durfey. It is mortifying enough, it must be confessed; but, however, let us proceed in the way that nature has directed us.”

 

It's SO relateable. Like comedians talking about Dane Cook. Or podcasters talking about Joe Rogan. Like, hey, I think it sucks, but also I'm never going to be half as successful as that guy. AND THAT LINE “Dares any one despise him who has made so many men drink?” What a perfect conclusion to come to about hack art! This is about as far off-topic as I have ever gotten on this show, but I wanted to share this with you because it gave me a new appreciation of things I think are dumb and the people who make them.

 

Anyway, back to “Wit and Mirth, or Pills to Purge Melancholy” All that was to say that it was about the early 1700's when this other version Blow Away the Morning Dew started appearing. 

 

[ROY HARRIS – CLEAR AWAY THE MORNING DEW]

 

That was Roy Harris. You can notice a different refrain on this one. This version retains most of the story, but loses some of the clarity and it gets kind of weird... I'll explain:

 

First, it's almost always a shepherd or a farmer at this point. So the joke about a high-born person being outsmarted kind of goes away. Or it flips and it's no longer punching up, but punching down. In this version, the “fair young maid” is often bathing nude in a brook. Sometimes the singer then chides the boy for not going about his own business. But, nevertheless, the boy starts peeping on the woman.

 

Now, this is weird... in basically every version of Blow Away the Morning Dew, she speaks first... which is completely bizarre. Because this next part comes apropos of nothing: She says “Look, if you don't steal my clothes, and you don't rape me right now, but instead take me back to my castle where I live, I'll not only pay you for the ride, but I'll let you take my virginity.”

 

Weird negotiation, but you all know how this ends, so...

 

He's always into it, they ride on a “milk-white steed like sister and like brother”, they get to the castle, she runs in, slams the gate, and she says “There stands a fool without and here a maid within.” And then, it usually ends with this line “Those who wilt not when they might they shall not when they would”

 

NOW PUT THAT IN CONTEXT. What are they talking about there?? Again, the moral of this story is “Just get it, bro. You weren't aggressive enough and you got friend-zoned.” It's like this gross nice guys finish last narrative. Like this song was written by the 17th century version of a pick-up artist.

 

And this isn't the worst it gets. But we have a couple more diversions til we get there. First, this version of the song has two errant lines. One that stands out and goes nowhere, the other which becomes an entire branch of the song. First, before “Those who wilt not when they might they shall not when they would” there is often a line “We have a flower in our garden, we call it Marigold.” I don't know why.

 

Second is the line, “There was a cock in my father's yard who never tread a hen, he struts all day and flaps his wings and I think you're just like him.” A simile for the shepherd boy who – again, in this telling – didn't do anything! But we know in the longer story he did, so I probably shouldn't worry so much about it. Anyway, that leads us to this:

 

[SEATTLE GIRLS' CHOIR - BLOW AWAY THE MORNING DEW]

 

That's a video from a popular video streaming service of the “Seattle Girls' Choir” in 2009. Maybe I'm bad at using internet search engines, but I can't find any recording of this song that didn't take place in a school by a choir of preteen or teenaged girls. The lyrics are just like that story about the rooster from Blow Away the Morning Dew. They're all about animals who won't do the thing they're supposed to do. A horse who won't jump. A hen who won't lay. A dog who won't steal it's owners food. You know, like what we want our dogs to do. The dog's name is Mustard, by the way, which is a great dog name. And the last line is about how the person singing the song will marry some unnamed person when all that unlikely stuff does happen.

 

I'm not sure where this version came from. In Child's collection, Emily Bishop mentions in the notes that Cecil Sharp made a version safe to sing in schools and for a second, I thought this animals one was that, but then, I found this really sweet and sad version. I'm just going to play the whole 2 minute song here.

 

[GUILDFORD CATHEDRAL CHOIR]

 

I found it also on a popular video streaming service. Uploaded just last year by “Archives of Sound”. It claims it's from a recital of the Guildford Cathedral Choir in the Royal Albert Hall of London in 1968. It was very probably written by Cecil Sharp in the early 1900's. That recording didn't contain all the lyrics and they were hard to understand anyway, so here's the story: A boy sees a girl on a hill collecting flowers. He falls instantly in love with her but just sits there watching her gathering more and more flowers. When he finally strikes up the courage to pick a flower of his own and hand it to her, she tells him her apron is full and walks away. I actually really like that version. I think it gets across the message about being confident without adding all this worrying stuff about aggressive masculinity and violations of consent. It's just a sweet story of heartbreak that you could see being a short cartoon before a Pixar movie. Please, someone make that.

 

Anyway, then there's this:

 

[RICHARD RODNEY BENNETT – BLOW AWAY THE MORNING DEW]

​

It's from a movie called Far From The Maddening Crowd – A 1967 romantic farming movie about gender politics and friend-zoning nice guys. Appropriately enough. I think this happened because of a guy named Ralph Vaughan Williams.

 

In 1923, Ralph Vaughan Williams composed a suite called “English Folk Song Suite”, for military bands to use. consisting of 3 movements. Seventeen Come Sunday March, My Bonny Boy Intermezzo, and Folk Songs from Somerset March – the last of which uses “Blow Away The Morning Dew” as it's central theme. You can hear it behind me now. Williams was known for working folk songs into his compositions and his contribution to folk music is huge. He was even the president of the English Folk Dance and Song Society and edited the first Penguin Book of English Folk Songs with AL Lloyd which would later be re-edited and released as one of the major books I start from when researching a song: The New Penguin Book of English Folk Songs by Julia Bishop and... Steve Roud. The creator of the Roud Folk Music Index.

 

There's a bit more to go here.

 

So Blow Away the Morning Dew is one of the branches of this song. A nearly identical one I don't know much about the origins of is called “Among the New Mown Hay”, and here's Martin Carthy and David Swarbrick singing it:

 

[MARTIN CARTHY/DAVID SWARBRICK – THE NEW MOWN HAY]

 

[PAUL CLAYTON – THE NEW MOWN HAY]

 

It's got a different tune and rhythm and refrain, but it's basically the exact same song. Hey. Listen to this one:

​

[WILLIAM REW - THE NEW MOWN HAY]

​

That version is William Rew – one of my favorites – and starts off with this really cool story that I don't understand even a little bit, but I love listening to it.

 

So. I've been putting this off because this is definitely the most upsetting version of this song. There's one more after it but I think you need to understand this one before we get into it... This one is called Jock Sheep. And it's a Scottish branch of The Baffled Knight. If the Baffled Knight is a pick-up artist anthem, Jock Sheep is straight up Red Pill. Here's the story:

 

A knight named Jock Sheep comes upon a maiden. Tries to sleep with her. She tells him “Not here, my father's castle.” They go. She runs in. Locks him out. Makes fun of him. Says the thing about the Marigold. Says the thing about the Cock. Says a thing about a Mare that won't ride –which is also familiar to us. And sings some refrain about “A whistle of yer thumb.” I don't know what that means. Jock Sheep swears revenge. He goes off, dresses up in women's clothing, and he comes back the next day claiming he needs help. The woman lets him in and he promptly rapes her. And repeats all her taunts to him back to her. Then she blames herself for falling for his trick and marries him.

 

Fucking hilarious, right?

 

Thankfully, I think we can conclude that since there are very few publications this was printed in, this wasn't a very popular version. I couldn't find any real full recordings of it either, but I did find this song called “Jock Sheep” by the Kitchen Cynics. It's just a meaningless mess of words if you don't already know the story because basically the only lyrics are her taunts of Jock Sheep. Which I'm cool with. Here you go:

 

 

Now that that's out of the way I think this last one is worth covering, if that weird one about the horse was worth covering... this one is considered a “possible” splinter of the song. It's actually considered separate by Roud and by Laws, but Child lumps them together and it's an interesting take. Plus, its Roud 674, so even if I released 2 episodes a month forever –which, you know I won't do-- it would be August 2044 before I got around to this one....

 

There's this song “Katey Morey” which is sort of the same idea, but much less icky.

 

Here's Bob Gibson. I'm going to leave his intro in here because it's ridiculous:

​

[BOB GIBSON - KATEY MOREY]

​

So she tricks him into climbing a tree and runs away, then he chases her dot dot dot they're married. I dunno. It seems way more like a playful prank between lovers in this song than like a battle against consent. Like they knew they were into each other the whole time and this was just a fun, flirty game. It helps wash the taste of the others out of your mouth, so I thought it was a good one to end with.

 

I know there's a big movement against judging old culture using modern morals and I know there's a haze of time that maybe has warped the tone and intent of this song. Except Jock Sheep. Fuck that one. Maybe we're supposed to view all of these version the way I view Katie Morey. That this was a fun game for the woman in the story and she never actually felt threatened. But still there's that moral. “Those who wilt not when they might they shall not when they would” or “Fear not for the rumpling of her gown but lay her body flat on the ground.” I can't view those in any other way except instructions on how to force a woman to have sex with you regardless of whether she wants to or not. And that makes this song not fun. And maybe it makes this episode not fun. And maybe that's why I put it off for 3 years. I don't know. But before I start mumbling off like William Rew, we should probably get out of here.

 

[PEGGY SEEGER & EWAN MACCOLL – KATIE MOREY]

 

Thanks as always to Steve Roud and the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library all for the existence of the Roud Folk Music Index, which I use to start all my research on this show and basically it's entire premise. I don't think any of those people know who I am or what this podcast is, but I appreciate what they do.

 

And thanks to the following artists who's music I used to tell this story:

 

Dan Gibson, Joel Frederiksen & Ensemble Phoenix Munich, The Baltimore Consort, The Consort of Musicke, The Academy of Ancient Music, Christopher Hogwood, City Waites, Emily Bishop, Lucy Ward, Roy Harris, Nils Brown, Sam Larner, Alfred Deller, Paul Clayton, Richard Rodney Bennett, Peggy Seeger, The King's Singers, William Rew, Marienne Kreitlow, Bob Gibson, Doc Watson, Martin Carthy, David Swarbrick, Alfred Edgehill, The Kitchen Cynics, Tom Stacks & Harry Reser, Seattle Girls' Choir, Guildford Cathedral Choir, The Almanac Singers.

 

If you're into any of that music I played and talked about, check out any or all of those bands. Using money. They're all amazing and I truly believe that and you're a bad person for thinking otherwise.

 

If you're interested in more information about any of those songs, you can do this: Listen to any portion of the show. Take one or two key words from that portion that you find interesting. Use the keyboard on your internet-ready device to type those words into a search engine. And always double and triple check your facts from multiple sources before you go telling them to people. That's more important now than ever before.

 

And lastly, you can reach me on any communication or social networking site using my full name Matt Aukamp. Email me at mattaukamp@gmail.com . I read all your emails and they make me feel really good. Even if I don't respond to them because I am scared of many types of human communication. Next up is Roud 12 – The Elfin Knight and I know better than to tell you when to come back for it or to come back for it at all. Hopefully, I'll talk to you soon. Take care, folks.