THE ELPHIN KNIGHT
The Text is from a broadside in black letter in the Pepysian Library at Cambridge; bound up at the end of a book published in 1673.
The Story of this ballad but poorly represents the complete form of the story as exhibited in many German and other ballads, where alternate bargaining and riddling ensues between a man and a maid. This long series of ballads is akin to the still longer series in which the person upon whom an impossible task is imposed is considered to have got the mastery by retaliating with another impossible task.
The opening stanzas of this ballad correspond closely with those of Lady Isabel and the Elf-Knight.