Found this while looking for information on this song...thanks much for the interpretations!

After hearing the song several times, I wonder about some parts of it though. The phrase that stuck in my mind was "could not stretch her spey", and having a thought on whether the word stretch was chosen purely for artistic reasons (i.e., because it flows better than 'break'), or if it is indicative of something else entirely.

By saying that he couldn't stretch it (rather than that he couldn't break it), it sounds almost like he couldn't..err..reach it. This makes me wonder whether they're saying not that she fought him off so well that he was prevented from entering the entire night, but instead that he was either not very well-equipped, or else suffered from impotence.

It'd be understandable - she's already been heaping scorn on him since the time he took her (on hearing the line "there's not a man in all Strathdon wedded be by me", I didn't take it to mean that she doesn't want to marry, but that she thinks all the men of Strathdon are completely beneath her - she considers none of them worth marrying). Turning to the wall (turning your back on your lover) is also a sign of scorn as much as it is a defensive posture. And then the maid heaps even more scorn on him in the morning for failing - is her comment about him not being man enough because she feels he didn't try hard enough, or is it scorn that he wasn't able to perform? The final scorn seems to be EM telling him to get a horse 'like a man', possibly implying that if he can't do anything else 'like a man', maybe he can at least fetch a horse like one? And just to rub it in a little more, she reminds him that she's going back to her mother as maiden as she came - that he failed, and everyone's going to know about it.

On the 'hired your hand' line, I'm thinking that it's probably idiomatic for something else rather than anything too literal. I was thinking it could mean something like 'she would have engaged you' (not engage as meaning betrothed, but engage as carry on with, a sort of slide from engage as meaning to hire). Another possibility could be a little closer to the literal meaning of hire - possibly, if he'd succeeded in taking her, she might have accepted him as a mercenary husband even though she considered him beneath her, a strong protector for the household if never a true love. But because she doesn't consider him 'a man', he's lost even that chance.

Anyway, just a couple of random thoughts on an old topic... ;)