The gentle brome on Hive hill,
The brome stands on Hive hill a.’
Before this date ‘Brume, brume on hil’ is mentioned in The Complaynt of Scotlande, 1549; and a similar song was among Captain Cox’s ‘ballets and songs, all auncient.’
The Story , of a youth challenging a maid, and losing his wager by being laid asleep with witchcraft, is popular and widespread. In the Gesta Romanorum is a story of which this theme is one main incident, the other being the well-known forfeit of a pound of flesh, as in the Merchant of Venice. Ser Giovanni (Pecorone, IV. 1) tells a similar tale, and other variations are found in narrative or ballad form in Iceland, Sweden, Denmark, Italy, and Germany.
Grimm notes the German superstition that the rosenschwamm (gall on the wild rose), if laid beneath a man’s pillow, causes him to sleep until it be taken away.
THE BROOMFIELD HILL
1.
There was a knight and a lady bright,
Had a true tryste at the broom;