Feint heart never won fair maiden

[StevieBoy]

Is it Faint/feint and maiden/lady and where is it from?

[andy hughes]

It's 'faint' as in lacking in courage. It comes from the days of medieval knights and jousting. Jousting, as well as providing sport and training for war, also provided a complex courting ritual - ladies would offer their 'favour' usually a handkerchief, for the knight of her choice to wear, tied to his lance, or sleeve. Obviously the knight needed to be brace to impress the maiden who had offered her favour, which expressed her interest in him. To perform with less than all his courage would obviously lessen her interest - hence the expression.

[Quizmonster]

In keeping with Andy's fine historical outline above, the saying is usually presented in the old-fashioned form: "Faint heart ne'er won fair lady."

[Peter Pedant]

Hi babies

isnt there an Elizabeth and Essex side to this?

Didnt he scratch it on a window, and she scratch another couplet as an answer?

[Quizmonster]

'Faint heart ne'er won fair lady' first appeared in exactly that form in a ballad published in the 1560s and, a couple of centuries later, we find Rabbie Burns writing in his 'Epistle to Doctor Blacklock'..."And let us mind faint heart ne'er wan a lady fair." So, there are a couple of certain literary references....I can't answer for Lizzie One!