"The Baffled Knight" or "Blow Away the Morning Dew" (Roud 11, Child 112) is a traditional ballad existing in numerous variants.
The first-known version was published in Thomas Ravenscroft's Deuteromelia (1609)[1][2] with a matching tune, making this one of the few early ballads for which there is extant original music.
[3] Norfolk fisherman Sam Larner sang this same melody to Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger in 1958–60,[4] then was filmed performing the song in 1962.
The ballad generally includes advice to young men not be put off by maidenly protests when they meet defenceless women; There is a gude auld proverb, I've often heard it told, He that would not when he might, He should not when he would.
[6][7] In one variant, he finds her again, and she tricks him by claiming her lover is near, so that he falls into the river, and a third time, in which she pulls his boots halfway off, so he is unable to get them on or off quickly enough to catch her.