The False Knight Upon the Road is a British ballad

Ballad

A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads were particularly characteristic of British and Irish popular poetry and song from the later medieval period until the 19th century and used extensively across Europe and later the Americas, Australia and North Africa. Many...

, collected and published as Child ballad 3, Roud

Roud Folk Song Index

The Roud Folk Song Index is a database of 300,000 references to over 21,600 songs that have been collected from oral tradition in the English language from all over the world...

 20. It features a riddling exchange between a schoolboy and a "false knight," the devil in disguise.

Synopsis

The knight asks the boy where he is going, and what he is carrying (books). He asks after the sheep, which belong to the boy and his mother, and how many belong to the knight—as many as have blue tails. The knight may wish him in a tree, the boy to have a ladder, the knight to have it break, and so on.

Throughout any exchange, the boy is described as standing fast. This appears to be the condition that will save him.

Commentary

The boy's ability to evade the devil may spring from the devil's inability to dumbfound him; gaining power over people by this means is a motif found in other folktales.

A Swedish variant features the little boy, but an old woman, presumably a witch, in the place of the knight.

Recordings

• Steeleye Span
  Steeleye Span
  Steeleye Span are an English folk-rock band, formed in 1969 and remaining active today. Along with Fairport Convention they are amongst the best known acts of the British folk revival, and were among the most commercially successful, thanks to their hit singles "Gaudete" and "All Around My Hat"....
  
   recorded this song as "False Knight on the Road" on their 1971 album Please to See the King
  Please to See the King
  Please To See The King is the second album by Steeleye Span, released in 1971. A substantial personnel change following their previous effort, Hark! The Village Wait, brought about a substantial change in their overall sound, including a lack of drums and the replacement of one female vocalist with...
  
  .
• The Blue Velvet Band recorded this song as "The Knight Upon the Road" on their 1969 album Sweet Moments.
• Stephan Said
  Stephan Said
  Stephan Othman Said aka Stephan Smith is an American singer-songwriter, rapper, writer, and global activist of Iraqi and Austrian descent....
  
   recorded "The False Knight on the Road" and a version re-written as an anti-war anthem on the 2002 EP The Bell which included Pete Seeger
  Pete Seeger
  Peter "Pete" Seeger is an American folk singer and was an iconic figure in the mid-twentieth century American folk music revival. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, he also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of The Weavers, most notably their recording of Lead...
  
   and Tara Nevins.
• Richard Thompson has performed a version of this song on recent tours.
• Fleet Foxes
  Fleet Foxes
  Fleet Foxes are a folk rock band which formed in Seattle, Washington. They are signed to the Sub Pop and Bella Union record labels. The band came to prominence in 2008 with the release of their second EP, Sun Giant, and their debut full length album Fleet Foxes...
  
   recorded this song as the b-side to the 7" release of "Mykonos" in 2009. This version features different lyrics to the original.
• Oysterband
  Oysterband
  Oysterband is a British electric folk or folk rock band formed in Canterbury in or around 1976.-Early history:...
  
  recorded this song on the CD The Oxford Girl & Other Stories in 2008 and on the CD Single "This Is The Voice" in 1999.

External links

• "Scottish Ballads Online" Child Ballad #3: 'The Fause Knight Three variants from Francis J Child's collection and link to versions from the living tradition.
• The Smart Schoolboy