"The Knight and the Shepherd's Daughter" is another song that I first heard
Brian Kelly singing in the early 1980's and which I then transcribed for the
Idle Fellows. It is quite similar to a version which can be found in
One Hundred English Folksongs
by Cecil J. Sharpe.
The song is a ballad about a shepherd's daughter, unnamed, asserting her rights, after being "undone" by the ungentlemanly Knight William, before the king himself. What is so interesting about this song socially, is the easy manner in which the king and the wronged maiden talk to each other and the readiness of the king to take the girl's part.