A maid who has been some years in a lady’s service aspires to something higher; she seeks and obtains a place with a queen, ‘to sew the seams of silk.’ The queen warns her to keep herself from the young prince, but the pair become familiar, and the queen has her mounted on a wild horse without a bridle, expecting to dispose of her summarily in this way. But the prince takes her from the horse and declares that he will marry her within the month. Buchan suspects that some “poetaster” has remodelled the story of the romance of Florice and Blancheflour, “modernizing it to suit the climate of his time,” that is, perhaps, turning a princess into a sempstress. The only thing in the romance that is even remotely like what we find in the ballad is that Florice saves Blancheflour from the death which his father had contrived for her in order to part the lovers, and this passage does not occur in the English versions of the romance. There is a Flemish ballad, so to call it, composed from the romance: Coussemaker, p. 177, No 51, Baecker, Chansons historiques de la Flandre, p. 121; Oude Liedekens in Bladeren, L. van Paemel, Gend, No 17. 1 There was a maid, richly arrayd, In robes were rare to see, For seven years and something mair She servd a gay ladie. 2 But being fond o a higher place, In service she thought lang; She took her mantle her about, Her coffer by the band. 3 And as she walkd by the shore-side, As blythe’s a bird on tree, Yet still she gaz’d her round about, To see what she could see. 4 At last she spied a little castle, That stood near by the sea; She spied it far and drew it near, To that castle went she. 5 And when she came to that castle She tirled at the pin, And ready stood a little wee boy To lat this fair maid in. 6 ‘O who’s the owner of this place, O porter-boy, tell me;’ ‘This place belongs unto a queen O birth and high degree.’ 7 She put her hand in her pocket, And gae him shillings three: ‘O porter, bear my message well Unto the queen frae me.’ 8 The porter’s gane before the queen, Fell low down on his knee: ‘Win up, win up, my porter-boy, What makes this courtesie?’ 9 ‘I hae been porter at your yetts, My dame, these years full three, But see a ladie at your yetts The fairest my eyes did see.’ 10 ‘Cast up my yetts baith wide and braid, Lat her come in to me, And I’ll know by her courtesie Lord’s daughter if she be.’ 11 When she came in before the queen, Fell low down on her knee: ‘Service frae you, my dame the queen, I pray you grant it me.’ 12 ‘If that service ye now do want, What station will ye be? Can ye card wool, or spin, fair maid, Or milk the cows to me?’