The Baffled Knight

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The Baffled Knight or Blow Away the Morning Dew is Child ballad 112, existing in numerous variants.

[edit] Synopsis

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

A knight, or a farmer's son, or a shepherd's son, meets a maid along the way, sometimes swimming in a brook. She persuades him that if he brings her to her father's house, she will marry him and bring a rich dowry. Once home, she goes inside and locks him out. In most variansts, she taunts him and tells him to not be put off by maidenly protests when he meets defenseless women.

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, and she pulls his boots halfway off, so he is unable to get them on or off quickly enough to catch her.