She Had a Better Offer | Medieval Love Song with Lyrics · Tavern Music

An original medieval love song with lyrics — tavern music for D&D nights, sung by Silas Halfpenny over cittern, a low frame drum, tin whistle and a firelit room keeping time on the boards. Most love songs prove he was the better man; in this one the smith was the better offer, everybody knows it, and Edith still turned him down. Good for a quiet table late in the evening, anyone who has ever been somebody's second choice on paper, or a D&D session where the bard finally gets a straight answer. Keep a seat at the table:    / @thelastcopper   From the songbook of Silas Halfpenny, entry the thirty-fifth. Everybody in here knows what Edith turned down. A smith, a forge, a man who came to her salt stall with his hat in his hand. She answered him the same day. Then she looked at me across the salt and told me, flat, what he had and what I have. I took it for the end of the matter, and I have lived very comfortably on being the worse of two ever since. I have been a year deciding what to say back. If she chose you with her eyes open, stop arguing with her. — Silas Halfpenny ━━━━━━━━━━ LYRICS ━━━━━━━━━━ I tell this one myself. If I don't, somebody else will. Edith had a better offer. Everybody in here knows what it was. So do I. So does she. The smith came to her stall with his hat in his hand. She heard him out and answered the same day. Then she looked at me across the salt and said it flat: I know what he had. I know what you have. She could have had the smith. She could have had the forge. She had a better offer than she took and she is sitting here. (Eyes open!) SHE WANTED THIS INSTEAD! Edith sells salt and she says a price once. She has never moved one, and the market knows it. She will stand and think at you, then give you the number. This house has laughed at that smith for a year and nobody laughs harder than me. She could have had the smith. She could have had the forge. She had a better offer than she took and she is sitting here. (Eyes open!) SHE WANTED THIS INSTEAD! A man can live a long while on being the worse of two. It is a warm place to sit and it costs nothing. I have had the run of it since the spring. I know what he had. I know what you have. I took that for the end of it. Edith had done that sum before she said it. So that was not an insult. It was not a kindness. That was a woman saying what she had decided, out loud, at her own board, in front of whoever was buying. And I laughed. She could have had the smith. She could have had the forge. She had a better offer than she took and she is sitting here. (Eyes open!) SHE WANTED THIS INSTEAD! She could have had the smith. She could have had the forge. She had a better offer than she took and she is sitting here. (Eyes open!) SHE WANTED THIS INSTEAD! She said it across the salt with her eyes open. I have been a year deciding what to say back.