Onlayn kitobni bepul oʻqing: ta muallif  The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, Volume 1 (of 5)

Francis James Child

Transcriber's Notes

This book contains material in multiple languages, and numerous examples of archaic, non-standard and dialect forms of English. Therefore no attempts to standardize spelling would be appropriate. The only changes made to the text are to correct typographical errors etc. which are listed at the end of the book. Minor corrections to format or punctuation have been made without comment.

Footnotes have been numbered sequentially throughout the book but are presented at the end of each section or ballad to which they refer.

Unicode characters have been used for special symbols and diacritics in the text. These should appear in the following table:

ā

macron

ă ĭ

breve

ć ń ś ẃ

acute accent

Č č ĕ Ř ř š Š ž

caron/hacek

ȝ

yogh

ł

l with stroke (in Polish etc.)

Œ œ

oe-ligature

ş

s with cedilla

†

dagger used to represent upright cross symbol

Greek symbols are also rendered with Unicode characters, but a Latin transliteration is provided in the "hover-text".

Note that [a'] and ['s] denote editorial insertions of contracted forms: e.g. on page 299 [a'] is an editorial insertion of "a'" (for "all"); on page 309 ['s] is an editorial insertion of "'s" (for "has"?).

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THE ENGLISH AND SCOTTISH
POPULAR BALLADS

THE
ENGLISH AND SCOTTISH
POPULAR BALLADS

EDITED BY
FRANCIS JAMES CHILD

IN FIVE VOLUMES
VOLUME I

NEW YORK
DOVER PUBLICATIONS, INC.

This Dover edition, first published in 1965, is an unabridged and unaltered republication of the work originally published by Houghton, Mifflin and Company, as follows:

• Vol. I—Part I, 1882; Part II, 1884
• Vol. II—Part III, 1885; Part IV, 1886
• Vol. III—Part V, 1888; Part VI, 1889
• Vol. IV—Part VII, 1890; Part VIII, 1892
• Vol. V—Part IX, 1894; Part X, 1898.

This edition also contains as an appendix to Part X an essay by Walter Morris Hart entitled "Professor Child and the Ballad," reprinted in toto from Vol. XXI, No. 4, 1906 [New Series Vol. XIV, No. 4] of the Publications of the Modern Language Association of America.

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 65-24347

Manufactured in the United States of America

Dover Publications, Inc. 180 Varick Street New York, N.Y. 10014

To
FREDERICK J. FURNIVALL, ESQ.
OF LONDON

My Dear Furnivall:

Without the Percy MS. no one would pretend to make a collection of the English Ballads, and but for you that manuscript would still, I think, be beyond reach of man, yet exposed to destructive chances. Through your exertions and personal sacrifices, directly, the famous and precious folio has been printed; and, indirectly, in consequence of the same, it has been transferred to a place where it is safe, and open to inspection. This is only one of a hundred reasons which I have for asking you to accept the dedication of this book from

Your grateful friend and fellow-student,

F. J. Child.

Cambridge, Mass., December 1, 1882.

ADVERTISEMENT TO PART I
NUMBERS 1-28

It was my wish not to begin to print The English and Scottish Popular Ballads until this unrestricted title should be justified by my having at command every valuable copy of every known ballad. A continuous effort to accomplish this object has been making for some nine or ten years, and many have joined in it. By correspondence, and by an extensive diffusion of printed circulars, I have tried to stimulate collection from tradition in Scotland, Canada, and the United States, and no becoming means has been left unemployed to obtain possession of unsunned treasures locked up in writing. The gathering from tradition has been, as ought perhaps to have been foreseen at this late day, meagre, and generally of indifferent quality. Materials in the hands of former editors have, in some cases, been lost beyond recovery, and very probably have lighted fires, like that large cantle of the Percy manuscript, maxime deflendus! Access to several manuscript collections has not yet been secured. But what is still lacking is believed to bear no great proportion to what is in hand, and may soon come in, besides: meanwhile, the uncertainties of the world forbid a longer delay to publish so much as has been got together.

Of hitherto unused materials, much the most important is a large collection of ballads made by Motherwell. For leave to take a copy of this I am deeply indebted to the present possessor, Mr Malcolm Colquhoun Thomson, of Glasgow, who even allowed the manuscript to be sent to London, and to be retained several months, for my accommodation. Mr J. Wylie Guild, of Glasgow, also permitted the use of a note-book of Motherwell's which supplements the great manuscript, and this my unwearied friend, Mr James Barclay Murdoch, to whose solicitation I owe both, himself transcribed with the most scrupulous accuracy. No other good office, asked or unasked, has Mr Murdoch spared.

Next in extent to the Motherwell collections come those of the late Mr Kinloch. These he freely placed at my disposal, and Mr William Macmath, of Edinburgh, made during Mr Kinloch's life an exquisite copy of the larger part of them, enriched with notes from Mr Kinloch's papers, and sent it to me across the water. After Mr Kinloch's death his collections were acquired by Harvard College Library, still through the agency of Mr Macmath, who has from the beginning rendered a highly valued assistance, not less by his suggestions and communications than by his zealous mediation.

No Scottish ballads are superior in kind to those recited in the last century by Mrs Brown, of Falkland. Of these there are, or were, three sets. One formerly owned by Robert Jamieson, the fullest of the three, was lent me, to keep as long as I required, by my honored friend the late Mr David Laing, who also secured for me copies of several ballads of Mrs Brown which are found in an Abbotsford manuscript, and gave me a transcript of the Glenriddell manuscript. The two others were written down for William Tytler and Alexander Fraser Tytler respectively, the former of these consisting of a portion of the Jamieson texts revised. These having for some time been lost sight of, Miss Mary Fraser Tytler, with a graciousness which I have reason to believe hereditary in the name, made search for them, recovered the one which had been obtained by Lord Woodhouselee, and copied it for me with her own hand. The same lady furnished me with another collection which had been made by a member of the family.

For later transcriptions from Scottish tradition I am indebted to Mr J. F. Campbell of Islay, whose edition and rendering of the racy West Highland Tales is marked by the rarest appreciation of the popular genius; to Mrs A. F. Murison, formerly of Old Deer, who undertook a quest for ballads in her native place on my behalf; to Mr Alexander Laing, of Newburgh-upon-Tay; to Mr James Gibb, of Joppa, who has given me a full score; to Mr David Louden, of Morham, Haddington; to the late Dr John Hill Burton and Miss Ella Burton; to Dr Thomas Davidson.

The late Mr Robert White, of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, allowed me to look through his collections in 1873, and subsequently made me a copy of such things as I needed, and his ready kindness has been continued by Mrs Andrews, his sister, and by Miss Andrews, his niece, who has taken a great deal of trouble on my account.

In the south of the mother-island my reliance has, of necessity, been chiefly upon libraries. The British Museum possesses, besides early copies of some of the older ballads, the Percy MS., Herd's MSS and Buchan's, and the Roxburgh broadsides. The library of the University of Cambridge affords one or two things of first-rate importance, and for these I am beholden to the accomplished librarian, Mr Henry Bradshaw, and to Professor Skeat. I have also to thank the Rev. F. Gunton, Dean, and the other authorities of Magdalen College, Cambridge, for permitting collations of Pepys ballads, most obligingly made for me by Mr Arthur S. B. Miller. Many things were required from the Bodleian library, and these were looked out for me, and scrupulously copied or collated, by Mr George Parker.

Texts of traditional ballads have been communicated to me in America by Mr W. W. Newell, of New York, who is soon to give us an interesting collection of Children's Games traditional in America; by Dr Huntington, Bishop of Central New York; Mr G. C. Mahon, of Ann Arbor, Michigan; Miss Margaret Reburn, of New Albion, Iowa; Miss Perine, of Baltimore; Mrs Augustus Lowell, Mrs L. F. Wesselhoeft, Mrs. Edward Atkinson, of Boston; Mrs Cushing, of Cambridge; Miss Ellen Marston, of New Bedford; Mrs Moncrieff, of London, Ontario.

Acknowledgments not well despatched in a phrase are due to many others who have promoted my objects: to Mr Furnivall, for doing for me everything which I could have done for myself had I lived in England; to that master of old songs and music, Mr William Chappell, very specially; to Mr J. Payne Collier; Mr Norval Clyne, of Aberdeen; Mr Alexander Young, of Glasgow; Mr Arthur Laurenson, of Lerwick, Shetland; Mr J. Burrell Curtis, of Edinburgh; Dr Vigfusson, of Oxford; Professor Edward Arber, of Birmingham; the Rev. J. Percival, Mr Francis Fry, Mr J. F. Nicholls, of Bristol; Professor George Stephens, of Copenhagen; Mr R. Bergström, of the Royal Library, Stockholm; Mr W. R. S. Ralston, Mr William Henry Husk, Miss Lucy Toulmin Smith, Mr A. F. Murison, of London; Professor Sophocles; Mr W. G. Medlicott, of Longmeadow; to Mr M. Heilprin, of New York, Mme de Maltchycé, of Boston, and Rabbi Dr Cohn, for indispensable translations from Polish and Hungarian; to Mr James Russell Lowell, Minister of the United States at London; to Professor Charles Eliot Norton, for such "pains and benefits" as I could ask only of a life-long friend.

In the editing of these ballads I have closely followed the plan of Grundtvig's Old Popular Ballads of Denmark, a work which will be prized highest by those who have used it most, and which leaves nothing to be desired but its completion. The author is as much at home in English as in Danish tradition, and whenever he takes up a ballad which is common to both nations nothing remains to be done but to supply what has come to light since the time of his writing. But besides the assistance which I have derived from his book, I have enjoyed the advantage of Professor Grundtvig's criticism and advice, and have received from him unprinted Danish texts, and other aid in many ways.

Such further explanations as to the plan and conduct of the work as may be desirable can be more conveniently given by and by. I may say here that textual points which may seem to be neglected will be considered in an intended Glossary, with which will be given a full account of Sources, and such indexes of Titles and Matters as will make it easy to find everything that the book may contain.

With renewed thanks to all helpers, and helpers' helpers, I would invoke the largest coöperation for the correction of errors and the supplying of deficiencies. To forestall a misunderstanding which has often occurred, I beg to say that every traditional version of a popular ballad is desired, no matter how many texts of the same may have been printed already.

F. J. Child.

[December, 1882.]

ADVERTISEMENT TO PART II
NUMBERS 29-53

I have again to express my obligations and my gratitude to many who have aided in the collecting and editing of these Ballads.

To Sir Hugh Hume Campbell, for the use of two considerable manuscript volumes of Scottish Ballads.

To Mr Allardyce, of Edinburgh, for a copy of the Skene Ballads, and for a generous permission to print such as I required, in advance of a possible publication on his part.

To Mr Mansfield, of Edinburgh, for the use of the Pitcairn manuscripts.

To Mrs Robertson, for the use of Note-Books of the late Dr Joseph Robertson, and to Mr Murdoch, of Glasgow, Mr Lugton, of Kelso, Mrs Alexander Forbes, of Edinburgh, and Messrs G. L. Kittredge and G. M. Richardson, former students of Harvard College, for various communications.

To Dr Reinhold Köhler's unrivalled knowledge of popular fiction, and his equal liberality, I am indebted for valuable notes, which will be found in the Additions at the end of this volume.

The help of my friend Dr Theodor Vetter has enabled me to explore portions of the Slavic ballad-field which otherwise must have been neglected.

Professors D. Silvan Evans, John Rhys, Paul Meyer, and T. Frederick Crane have lent me a ready assistance in literary emergencies.

The interest and coöperation of Mr Furnivall and Mr Macmath have been continued to me without stint or weariness.

It is impossible, while recalling and acknowledging acts of courtesy, good will, and friendship, not to allude, with one word of deep personal grief, to the irreparable loss which all who are concerned with the study of popular tradition have experienced in the death of Svend Grundtvig.

F. J. C.

June, 1884.

CONTENTS

VOLUME I

ballad page Biographical Sketch of Professor Child

xvii

1.

Riddles Wisely Expounded

1

(Additions and Corrections: I,

484

; II, 495; III, 496; IV, 439; V, 205, 283.)

2.

The Elfin Knight

6

(Additions and Corrections: I,

484

; II, 495; III, 496; IV, 439; V, 205, 284.)

3.

The Fause Knight Upon the Road

20

(Additions and Corrections: I,

485

; II, 496; III, 496; IV, 440.)

4.

Lady Isabel and the Elf-Knight

22

(Additions and Corrections: I,

485

; II, 496; III, 496; IV, 440; V, 206, 285.)

5.

Gil Brenton

62

(Additions and Corrections: I,

489

; II, 498; III, 497; IV, 442; V, 207, 285.)

6.

Willie's Lady

81

(Additions and Corrections: II, 498; III, 497; V, 207, 285.)

7.

Earl Brand

88

(Additions and Corrections: I,

489

; II, 498; III, 497; IV, 443; V, 207, 285.)

8.

Erlinton

106

(Additions and Corrections: III, 498; IV, 445.)

9.

The Fair Flower of Northumberland

111

(Additions and Corrections: I,

493

; II, 498; III, 499; V, 207.)

10.

The Twa Sisters

118

(Additions and Corrections: I,

493

; II, 498; III, 499; IV, 447; V, 208, 286.)

11.

The Cruel Brother

141

(Additions and Corrections: I,

496

; II, 498; III, 499; IV, 449; V, 208, 286.)

12.

Lord Randal

151

(Additions and Corrections: I,

498

; II, 498; III, 499; IV, 449; V, 208, 286.)

13.

Edward

167

(Additions and Corrections: I,

501

; II, 499; III, 499; V, 209, 287.)

14.

Babylon; or, The Bonnie Banks o Fordie

170

(Additions and Corrections: I,

501

; II, 499; III, 499; IV, 450; V, 209, 287.)

15.

Leesome Brand

177

(Additions and Corrections: I,

501

; II, 499; III, 500; IV, 450; V, 209, 287.)

16.

Sheath and Knife

185

(Additions and Corrections: II, 499; III, 500; IV, 450; V, 210.)

17.

Hind Horn

187

(Additions and Corrections: I,

502

; II, 499; III, 501; IV, 450; V, 210, 287.)

18.

Sir Lionel

208

(Additions and Corrections: II, 500; IV, 451.)

19.

King Orfeo

215

(Additions and Corrections: II, 500; III, 502; IV, 451; V, 211.)

20.

The Cruel Mother

218

(Additions and Corrections: I,

504

; II, 500; III, 502; IV, 451; V, 211, 287.)

21.

The Maid and the Palmer (The Samaritan Woman)

228

(Additions and Corrections: II, 501; III, 502; IV, 451; V, 212, 288.)

22.

St. Stephen and Herod

233

(Additions and Corrections: I,

505

; II, 501; III, 502; IV, 451; V, 212, 288.)

23.

Judas

242

(Additions and Corrections: V, 288.)

24.

Bonnie Annie

244

(Additions and Corrections: IV, 452.)

25.

Willie's Lyke-Wake

247

(Additions and Corrections: I,

506

; II, 502; III, 503; IV, 453; V, 212, 289.)

26.

The Three Ravens

253

(Additions and Corrections: IV, 454; V, 212.)

27.

The Whummil Bore

255

(Additions and Corrections: V, 212.)

28.

Burd Ellen and Young Tamlane

256

(Additions and Corrections: I,

507

; III, 503.)

29.

The Boy and the Mantle

257

(Additions and Corrections: I,

507

; II, 502; III, 503; IV, 454; V, 212, 289.)

30.

King Arthur and King Cornwall

274

(Additions and Corrections: I,

507

; II, 502; III, 503; V, 289.)

31.

The Marriage of Sir Gawain

288

(Additions and Corrections: I,

507

; II, 502; IV, 454; V, 213, 289.)

32.

King Henry

297

(Additions and Corrections: II, 502; IV, 454; V, 289.)

33.

Kempy Kay

300

(Additions and Corrections: V, 213, 289.)

34.

Kemp Owyne

306

(Additions and Corrections: II, 502; III, 504; IV, 454; V, 213, 290.)

35.

Allison Gross

313

(Additions and Corrections: III, 504; V, 214.)

36.

The Laily Worm and the Machrel of the Sea

315

(Additions and Corrections: V, 214, 290.)

37.

Thomas Rymer

317

(Additions and Corrections: II, 505; III, 504; IV, 454, 290.)

38.

The Wee Wee Man

329

39.

Tam Lin

335

(Additions and Corrections: I,

507

; II, 505; III, 504; IV, 455; V, 215, 290.)

40.

The Queen of Elfan's Nourice

358

(Additions and Corrections: II, 505; III, 505; IV, 459; V, 215, 290.)

41.

Hind Etin

360

(Additions and Corrections: I,

508

; II, 506; III, 506; IV, 459; V, 215.)

42.

Clerk Colvill

371

(Additions and Corrections: II, 506; III, 506; IV, 459; V, 215, 290.)

43.

The Broomfield Hill

390

(Additions and Corrections: I,

508

; II, 506; III, 506; IV, 459, 290.)

44.

The Twa Magicians

399

(Additions and Corrections: II, 506; III, 506; IV, 459; V, 216, 290.)

45.

King John and the Bishop

403

(Additions and Corrections: I,

508

; II, 506; IV, 459; V, 216, 291.)

46.

Captain Wedderburn's Courtship

414

(Additions and Corrections: II, 507; III, 507; IV, 459; V, 216, 291.)

47.

Proud Lady Margaret

425

(Additions and Corrections: IV, 460; V, 291.)

48.

Young Andrew

432

49.

The Twa Brothers

435

(Additions and Corrections: II, 507; III, 507; IV, 460; V, 217, 291.)

50.

The Bonny Hind

444

(Additions and Corrections: V, 218.)

51.

Lizie Wan

447

52.

The King's Dochter Lady Jean

450

53.

Young Beichan

454

(Additions and Corrections: II, 508; III, 507; IV, 460; V, 218, 291.)

Additions and Corrections

484

VOLUME II

54.

The Cherry-Tree Carol

1

(Additions and Corrections: II, 509; V, 220.)

55.

The Carnal and the Crane

7

(Additions and Corrections: II, 509; III, 507; IV. 462; V, 220.)

56.

Dives and Lazarus

10

(Additions and Corrections: II, 510; III, 507; IV, 462; V, 220, 292.)

57.

Brown Robyn's Confession

13

(Additions and Corrections: II, 510; III, 508; IV, 462; V, 220, 292.)

58.

Sir Patrick Spens

17

(Additions and Corrections: II, 510; V, 220.)

59.

Sir Aldingar

33

(Additions and Corrections: II, 510; III, 508; IV, 463; V, 292.)

60.

King Estmere

49

(Additions and Corrections: II, 510; III, 508; IV, 463.)

61.

Sir Cawline

56

(Additions and Corrections: II, 511; III, 508; IV, 463.)

62.

Fair Annie

63

(Additions and Corrections: II, 511; IV, 463; V, 220.)

63.

Child Waters

83

(Additions and Corrections: II, 511; III, 508; IV, 463; V, 220.)

64.

Fair Janet

100

(Additions and Corrections: III, 508; IV, 464; V, 222, 292.)

65.

Lady Maisry

112

(Additions and Corrections: III, 508; IV, 466; V, 222, 292.)

66.

Lord Ingram and Chiel Wyet

126

(Additions and Corrections: II, 511; III, 508; V, 223, 292.)

67.

Glasgerion

136

(Additions and Corrections: II, 511; III, 509; IV, 468; V, 293.)

68.

Young Hunting

142

(Additions and Corrections: II, 512; III, 509; IV, 468; V, 223.)

69.

Clerk Saunders

156

(Additions and Corrections: II, 512; III, 509; IV, 468; V, 223, 293.)

70.

Willie and Lady Maisry

167

71.

The Bent Sae Brown

170

(Additions and Corrections: III, 509; IV, 469; V, 223.)

72.

The Clerks's Twa Sons o Owsenford

173

(Additions and Corrections: II, 512; III, 509; IV, 469; V, 293.)

73.

Lord Thomas and Fair Annet

179

(Additions and Corrections: II, 512; III, 509; IV, 469; V, 223, 293.)

74.

Fair Margaret and Sweet William

199

(Additions and Corrections: V, 224, 293.)

75.

Lord Lovel

204

(Additions and Corrections: II, 512; III, 510; IV, 471; V, 225, 294.)

76.

The Lass of Roch Royal

213

(Additions and Corrections: III, 510; IV, 471; V, 225, 294.)

77.

Sweet William's Ghost

226

(Additions and Corrections: II, 512; IV, 474; V, 225, 294.)

78.

The Unquiet Grave

234

(Additions and Corrections: II, 512; III, 512; IV, 474; V, 225, 294.)

79.

The Wife of Usher's Well

238

(Additions and Corrections: III, 513; V, 294.)

80.

Old Robin of Portingale

240

(Additions and Corrections: II, 513; III, 514; IV, 476; V, 225, 295.)

81.

Little Musgrave and Lady Barnard

242

(Additions and Corrections: II, 513; IV, 476; V, 225.)

82.

The Bonny Birdy

260

83.

Child Maurice

263

(Additions and Corrections: III, 514; IV, 478.)

84.

Bonny Barbara Allan

276

(Additions and Corrections: III, 514.)

85.

Lady Alice

279

(Additions and Corrections: III, 514; V, 225.)

86.

Young Benjie

281

(Additions and Corrections: IV, 478.)

87.

Prince Robert

284

(Additions and Corrections: V, 295.)

88.

Young Johnstone

288

89.

Fause Foodrage

296

(Additions and Corrections: II, 513; III, 515; IV, 479.)

90.

Jellon Grame

302

(Additions and Corrections: II, 513; III, 515; IV, 479; V, 226, 295.)

91.

Fair Mary of Wallington

309

(Additions and Corrections: II, 513; III, 515; IV, 479; V, 227.)

92.

Bonny Bee Hom

317

(Additions and Corrections: V, 229.)

93.

Lamkin

320

(Additions and Corrections: II, 513; III, 515; IV, 480; V, 229, 295.)

94.

Young Waters

342

(Additions and Corrections: III, 516.)

95.

The Maid Freed from the Gallows

346

(Additions and Corrections: II, 514; III, 516; IV, 481; V, 231, 296.)

96.

The Gay Goshawk

355

(Additions and Corrections: III, 517; IV, 482; V, 234, 296.)

97.

Brown Robin

368

98.

Brown Adam

373

99.

Johnie Scot

377

(Additions and Corrections: IV, 486; V, 234.)

100.

Willie o Winsbury

398

(Additions and Corrections: II, 514; III, 517; IV, 491; V, 296.)

101.

Willie o Douglas Dale

406

(Additions and Corrections: III, 517; V, 235.)

102.

Willie and Earl Richard's Daughter

412

(Additions and Corrections: III, 518.)

103.

Rose the Red and White Lily

415

104.

Prince Heathen

424

(Additions and Corrections: V, 296.)

105.

The Bailiff's Daughter of Islington

426

(Additions and Corrections: III, 518; V, 237.)

106.

The Famous Flower of Serving-Men

428

(Additions and Corrections: III, 518; IV, 492.)

107.

Will Stewart and John

432

(Additions and Corrections: V, 237.)

108.

Christopher White

439

109.

Tom Potts

441

(Additions and Corrections: III, 518.)

110.

The Knight and Shepherd's Daughter

457

(Additions and Corrections: IV, 492; V, 237.)

111.

Crow and Pie

478

112.

The Baffled Knight

479

(Additions and Corrections: III, 518; IV, 495; V, 239, 296.)

113.

The Great Silkie of Sule Skerry

494

(Additions and Corrections: III, 518; IV, 495.)

Additions and Corrections

495

VOLUME III

114.

Johnie Cock

1

(Additions and Corrections: IV, 495.)

115.

Robyn and Gandeleyn

12

116.

Adam Bell, Clim of the Clough, and William of Cloudesly

14

(Additions and Corrections: III, 518; IV, 496; V, 297.)

117.

A Gest of Robyn Hode

39

(Additions and Corrections: III, 519; IV, 496; V, 240, 297.)

118.

Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne

89

119.

Robin Hood and the Monk

94

120.

Robin Hood's Death

102

(Additions and Corrections: V, 240, 297.)

121.

Robin Hood and the Potter

108

(Additions and Corrections: IV, 497.)

122.

Robin Hood and the Butcher

115

123.

Robin Hood and the Curtal Friar

120

(Additions and Corrections: V, 297.)

124.

The Jolly Pinder of Wakefield

129

125.

Robin Hood and Little John

133

(Additions and Corrections: V, 297.)

126.

Robin Hood and the Tanner

137

127.

Robin Hood and the Tinker

140

128.

Robin Hood newly Revived

144

129.

Robin Hood and the Prince of Aragon

147

130.

Robin Hood and the Scotchman

150

131.

Robin Hood and the Ranger

152

132.

The Bold Pedlar and Robin Hood

154

(Additions and Corrections: V, 240.)

133.

Robin Hood and the Beggar, I

155

134.

Robin Hood and the Beggar, II

158

135.

Robin Hood and the Shepherd

165

136.

Robin Hood's Delight

168

137.

Robin Hood and the Pedlars

170

138.

Robin Hood and Allen a Dale

172

139.

Robin Hood's Progress to Nottingham

175

140.

Robin Hood rescuing Three Squires

177

141.

Robin Hood rescuing Will Stutly

185

(Additions and Corrections: IV, 497.)

142.

Little John a Begging

188

143.

Robin Hood and the Bishop

191

144.

Robin Hood and the Bishop of Hereford

193

145.

Robin Hood and Queen Katherine

196

146.

Robin Hood's Chase

205

147.

Robin Hood's Golden Prize

208

(Additions and Corrections: III, 519.)

148.

The Noble Fisherman, or, Robin Hood's Preferment

211

149.

Robin Hood's Birth, Breeding, Valor and Marriage

214

150.

Robin Hood and Maid Marian

218

(Additions and Corrections: III, 519.)

151.

The King's Disguise, and Friendship with Robin Hood

220

152.

Robin Hood and the Golden Arrow

223

(Additions and Corrections: V, 241.)

153.

Robin Hood and the Valiant Knight

225

154.

A True Tale of Robin Hood

227

155.

Sir Hugh, or, The Jew's Daughter

233

(Additions and Corrections: III, 519; IV, 497; V, 241, 297.)

156.

Queen Eleanor's Confession

257

(Additions and Corrections: IV, 498; V, 241, 297.)

157.

Gude Wallace

265

(Additions and Corrections: V, 242.)

158.

Hugh Spencer's Feats in France

275

(Additions and Corrections: IV, 499; V, 243.)

159.

Durham Field

282

(Additions and Corrections: V, 297.)

160.

The Knight of Liddesdale

288

161.

The Battle of Otterburn

289

(Additions and Corrections: III, 520; IV, 499; V, 243, 297.)

162.

The Hunting of the Cheviot

303

(Additions and Corrections: IV, 502; V, 244, 297.)

163.

The Battle of Harlaw

316

(Additions and Corrections: V, 245.)

164.

King Henry Fifth's Conquest of France

320

(Additions and Corrections: V, 245.)

165.

Sir John Butler

327

166.

The Rose of England

331

167.

Sir Andrew Barton

334

(Additions and Corrections: IV, 502; V, 245.)

168.

Flodden Field

351

(Additions and Corrections: IV, 507; V, 298.)

169.

Johnie Armstrong

362

(Additions and Corrections: III, 520; IV, 507; V, 298.)

170.

The Death of Queen Jane

372

(Additions and Corrections: V, 245, 298.)

171.

Thomas Cromwell

377

172.

Musselburgh Field

378

(Additions and Corrections: IV, 507.)

173.

Mary Hamilton

379

(Additions and Corrections: IV, 507; V, 246, 298.)

174.

Earl Bothwell

399

(Additions and Corrections: V, 247.)

175.

The Rising in the North

401

176.

Northumberland betrayed by Douglas

408

(Additions and Corrections: V, 299.)

177.

The Earl of Westmoreland

416

(Additions and Corrections: V, 299.)

178.

Captain Car, or, Edom o Gordon

423

(Additions and Corrections: III, 520; IV, 513; V, 247, 299.)

179.

Rookhope Ryde

439

180.

King James and Brown

442

181.

The Bonny Earl of Murray

447

(Additions and Corrections: IV, 515.)

182.

The Laird o Logie

449

(Additions and Corrections: III, 520; IV, 515; V, 299.)

183.

Willie Macintosh

456

(Additions and Corrections: IV, 516.)

184.

The Lads of Wamphray

458

(Additions and Corrections: III, 520.)

185.

Dick o the Cow

461

186.

Kinmont Willie

469

(Additions and Corrections: IV, 516.)

187.

Jock o the Side

475

188.

Archie o Cawfield

484

(Additions and Corrections: IV, 516.)

Additions and Corrections

496

VOLUME IV

189.

Hobie Noble

1

190.

Jamie Telfer of the Fair Dodhead

4

(Additions and Corrections: IV, 518; V, 249, 300.)

191.

Hughie Grame

8

(Additions and Corrections: IV, 518; V, 300.)

192.

The Lochmaben Harper

16

(Additions and Corrections: V, 300.)

193.

The Death of Parcy Reed

24

(Additions and Corrections: IV, 520.)

194.

The Laird of Wariston

28

195.

Lord Maxwell's Last Goodnight

34

(Additions and Corrections: V, 251.)

196.

The Fire of Frendraught

39

(Additions and Corrections: IV, 521; V, 251, 301.)

197.

James Grant

49

(Additions and Corrections: V, 251.)

198.

Bonny John Seton

51

(Additions and Corrections: V, 251.)

199.

The Bonnie House o Airlie

54

(Additions and Corrections: V, 252.)

200.

The Gypsy Laddie

61

(Additions and Corrections: IV, 522; V, 252, 301.)

201.

Bessy Bell and Mary Gray

75

(Additions and Corrections: IV, 522; V, 253.)

202.

The Battle of Philiphaugh

77

203.

The Baron of Brackley

79

(Additions and Corrections: IV, 522; V, 253.)

204.

Jamie Douglas

90

205.

Loudon Hill, or, Drumclog

105

206.

Bothwell Bridge

108

207.

Lord Delamere

110

208.

Lord Derwentwater

115

(Additions and Corrections: IV, 522; V, 254.)

209.

Geordie

123

210.

Bonnie James Campbell

142

211.

Bewick and Graham

144

(Additions and Corrections: IV, 522.)

212.

The Duke of Athole's Nurse

150

213.

Sir James the Rose

155

214.

The Braes o Yarrow

160

(Additions and Corrections: IV, 522; V, 255.)

215.

Rare Willie Drowned in Yarrow, or, The Water o Gamrie

178

(Additions and Corrections: V, 256.)

216.

The Mother's Malison, or, Clyde's Water

185

(Additions and Corrections: V, 256, 301.)

217.

The Broom of Cowdenknows

191

(Additions and Corrections: IV, 523; V, 257.)

218.

The False Lover won back

209

219.

The Gardener

212

(Additions and Corrections: V, 258.)

220.

The Bonny Lass of Anglesey

214

221.

Katharine Jaffray

216

(Additions and Corrections: IV, 523; V, 260.)

222.

Bonny Baby Livingston

231

(Additions and Corrections: IV, 523; V, 261.)

223.

Eppie Morrie

239

(Additions and Corrections: V, 262.)

224.

The Lady of Arngosk

241

225.

Rob Roy

243

(Additions and Corrections: IV, 523; V, 262.)

226.

Lizie Lindsay

255

(Additions and Corrections: IV, 524; V, 264.)

227.

Bonny Lizie Baillie

266

(Additions and Corrections: V, 265.)

228.

Glasgow Peggie

270

(Additions and Corrections: V, 266.)

229.

Earl Crawford

276

(Additions and Corrections: V, 301.)

230.

The Slaughter of the Laird of Mellerstain

281

231.

The Earl of Errol

282

(Additions and Corrections: V, 267.)

232.

Richie Story

291

(Additions and Corrections: V, 270.)

233.

Andrew Lammie

300

234.

Charlie MacPherson

308

(Additions and Corrections: V, 301.)

235.

The Earl of Aboyne

311

(Additions and Corrections: V, 270, 301.)

236.

The Laird o Drum

322

(Additions and Corrections: V, 272.)

237.

The Duke of Gordon's Daughter

332

(Additions and Corrections: V, 273.)

238.

Glenlogie, or, Jean o Bethelnie

338

(Additions and Corrections: V, 273, 302.)

239.

Lord Saltoun and Auchanachie

347

(Additions and Corrections: V, 273.)

240.

The Rantin Laddie

351

(Additions and Corrections: V, 274.)

241.

The Baron o Leys

355

(Additions and Corrections: V, 275.)

242.

The Coble o Cargill

358

243.

James Harris (The Dæmon Lover)

360

(Additions and Corrections: IV, 524.)

244.

James Hatley

370

245.

Young Allan

375

(Additions and Corrections: V, 275.)

246.

Redesdale and Wise William

383

(Additions and Corrections: V, 276.)

247.

Lady Elspat

387

248.

The Grey Cock, or, Saw you my Father?

389

(Additions and Corrections: V, 302.)

249.

Auld Matrons

391

250.

Henry Martyn

393

(Additions and Corrections: V, 302.)

251.

Lang Johnny More

396

(Additions and Corrections: IV, 524.)

252.

The Kitchie-Boy

400

(Additions and Corrections: V, 277.)

253.

Thomas o Yonderdale

409

254.

Lord William, or, Lord Lundy

411

255.

Willie's Fatal Visit

415

256.

Alison and Willie

416

257.

Burd Isabel and Earl Patrick

417

(Additions and Corrections: V, 278.)

258.

Broughty Wa's

423

259.

Lord Thomas Stuart

425

(Additions and Corrections: V, 279.)

260.

Lord Thomas and Lady Margaret

426

261.

Lady Isabel

429

262.

Lord Livingston

431

263.

The New-Slain Knight

434

(Additions and Corrections: V, 279.)

264.

The White Fisher

435

265.

The Knight's Ghost

437

Additions and Corrections

439

VOLUME V

266.

John Thomson and the Turk

1

(Additions and Corrections: V, 279.)

267.

The Heir of Linne

11

268.

The Twa Knights

21

269.

Lady Diamond

29

(Additions and Corrections: V, 303.)

270.

The Earl of Mar's Daughter

38

271.

The Lord of Lorn and the False Steward

42

(Additions and Corrections: V, 280.)

272.

The Suffolk Miracle

58

(Additions and Corrections: V, 303.)

273.

King Edward the Fourth and a Tanner of Tamworth

67

(Additions and Corrections: V, 303.)

274.

Our Goodman

88

(Additions and Corrections: V, 281, 303.)

275.

Get up and bar the Door

96

(Additions and Corrections: V, 281, 304.)

276.

The Friar in the Well

100

277.

The Wife Wrapt in Wether's Skin

104

(Additions and Corrections: V, 304.)

278.

The Farmer's Curst Wife

107

(Additions and Corrections: V, 305.)

279.

The Jolly Beggar

109

280.

The Beggar-Laddie

116

(Additions and Corrections: V, 305.)

281.

The Keach I the Creel

121

282.

Jock the Leg and the Merry Merchant

126

283.

The Crafty Farmer

128

284.

John Dory

131

285.

The George Aloe and the Sweepstake

133

286.

The Sweet Trinity (The Golden Vanity)

135

(Additions and Corrections: V, 305.)

287.

Captain Ward and the Rainbow

143

(Additions and Corrections: V, 305.)

288.

The Young Earl of Essex's Victory over the Emperor of Germany

145

289.

The Mermaid

148

290.

The Wylie Wife of the Hie Toun Hie

153

291.

Child Owlet

156

(Additions and Corrections: V, 305.)

292.

The West-Country Damosel's Complaint

157

293.

John of Hazelgreen

159

294.

Dugall Quin

165

(Additions and Corrections: V, 305.)

295.

The Brown Girl

166

296.

Walter Lesly

168

297.

Earl Rothes

170

298.

Young Peggy

171

299.

Trooper and Maid

172

(Additions and Corrections: V, 306.)

300.

Blancheflour and Jellyflorice

175

301.

The Queen of Scotland

176

302.

Young Bearwell

178

303.

The Holy Nunnery

179

304.

Young Ronald

181

305.

The Outlaw Murray

185

(Additions and Corrections: V, 307.)

Fragments

201

(Additions and Corrections: V, 307.)

Additions and Corrections

205, 283

Glossary

309

Sources of the Texts

397

Index of Published Airs

405

Ballad Airs from Manuscript

:

3. The Fause Knight upon the Road

411

9. The Fair Flower of Northumberland

411

10. The Twa Sisters

411

11. The Cruel Brother

412

12. Lord Randal

412

17. Hind Horn

413

20. The Cruel Mother

413

40. The Queen of Elfan's Nourice

413

42. Clerk Colvill

414

46. Captain Wedderburn's Courtship

414

47. Proud Lady Margaret

414

53. Young Beichan

415

58. Sir Patrick Spens

415

61. Sir Colin

415

63. Child Waters

415

68. Young Hunting

416

75. Lord Lovel

416

77. Sweet William's Ghost

416

84. Bonny Barbara Allan

416

89. Fause Foodrage

416

95. The Maid freed from the Gallows

417

97. Brown Robin

417

98. Brown Adam

417

99. Johnie Scot

418

100. Willie o Winsbury

418

106. The Famous Flower of Serving-Men

418

144. Johnie Cock

419

157. Gudo Wallace

419

161. The Battle of Otterburn

419

163. The Battle of Harlaw

419

164. King Henry Fifth's Conquest of France

420

169. Johnie Armstrong

420

173. Mary Hamilton

421

182. The Laird o Logie

421

222. Bonny Baby Livingston

421

226. Lizie Lindsay

421

228. Glasgow Peggie

422

235. The Earl of Aboyne

422

247. Lady Elspat

422

250. Andrew Bartin

423

256. Alison and Willie

423

258. Broughty Wa's

423

278. The Farmer's Curst Wife

423

281. The Keach i the Creel

424

286. The Sweet Trinity

424

299. Trooper and Maid

424

Index of Ballad Titles

425

Titles of Collections of Ballads, or Books containing Ballads, which are very briefly cited in this work

455

Index of Matters and Literature

469

Bibliography

503

Corrections to be made in the Print

567

Appendix: Professor Child and the Ballad

571

FRANCIS JAMES CHILD

Francis James Child was born in Boston on the first day of February, 1825. He was the third in a family of eight children. His father was a sailmaker, "one of that class of intelligent and independent mechanics," writes Professor Norton, "which has had a large share in determining the character of our democratic community, as of old the same class had in Athens and in Florence." The boy attended the public schools, as a matter of course; and, his parents having no thought of sending him to college, he went, in due time, not to the Latin School, but to the English High School of his native town. At that time the head master of the Boston Latin School was Mr Epes Sargent Dixwell, who is still living, at a ripe old age, one of the most respected citizens of Cambridge. Mr Dixwell had a keen eye for scholarly possibilities in boys, and, falling in with young Francis Child, was immediately struck with his extraordinary mental ability. At his suggestion, the boy was transferred to the Latin School, where he entered upon the regular preparation for admission to Harvard College. His delight in his new studies was unbounded, and the freshness of it never faded from his memory. "He speedily caught up with the boys who had already made considerable progress in Greek and Latin, and soon took the first place here, as he had done in the schools which he had previously attended." Mr Dixwell strongly advised his father to permit him to continue his studies, and made arrangements by which his college expenses should be provided for. The money Professor Child repaid, with interest, as soon as his means allowed. His gratitude to Mr. Dixwell and the friendship between them lasted through his life.

In 1842 Mr Child entered Harvard College. The intellectual condition of the college at that time and the undergraduate career of Mr Child have been admirably described by his classmate and lifelong friend, Professor Norton, in a passage which must be quoted in full[1]:—

"Harvard was then still a comparatively small institution, with no claims to the title of University; but she had her traditions of good learning as an inspiration for the studious youth, and still better she had teachers who were examples of devotion to intellectual pursuits, and who cared for those ends the attainment of which makes life worth living. Josiah Quincy was approaching the close of his term of service as President of the College, and stood before the eyes of the students as the type of a great public servant, embodying the spirit of patriotism, of integrity, and of fidelity in the discharge of whatever duty he might be called to perform. Among the Professors were Walker, Felton, Peirce, Channing, Beck, and Longfellow, men of utmost variety of temperament, but each an instructor who secured the respect no less than the gratitude of his pupils.

"The class to which Child belonged numbered hardly over sixty. The prescribed course of study which was then the rule brought all the members of the class together in recitations and lectures, and every man soon knew the relative standing of each of his fellows. Child at once took the lead and kept it. His excellence was not confined to any one special branch of study; he was equally superior in all. He was the best in the classics, he was Peirce's favorite in mathematics, he wrote better English than any of his classmates. His intellectual interests were wider than theirs, he was a great reader, and his tastes in reading were mature. He read for amusement as well as for learning, but he did not waste his time or dissipate his mental energies over worthless or pernicious books. He made good use of the social no less than of the intellectual opportunities which college life affords, and became as great a favorite with his classmates as he had been with his schoolfellows.

"The close of his college course was marked by the exceptional distinction of his being chosen by his classmates as their Orator, and by his having the first part at Commencement as the highest scholar in the class. His class oration was remarkable for its maturity of thought and of style. Its manliness of spirit, its simple directness of presentation of the true objects of life, and of the motives by which the educated man, whatever might be his chosen career, should be inspired, together with the serious and eloquent earnestness with which it was delivered, gave to his discourse peculiar impressiveness and effect."

Graduating with the degree of Bachelor of Arts in 1846, Mr Child immediately entered the service of the college, in which he continued till the day of his death. From 1846 to 1848 he was tutor in mathematics. In 1848 he was transferred, at his own request, to a tutorship in history and political economy, to which were annexed certain duties of instruction in English. In 1849 he obtained leave of absence for travel and study in Europe. He remained in Europe for about two years, returning, late in 1851, to receive an appointment to the Boylston Professorship of Rhetoric and Oratory, then falling vacant by the resignation of Professor Edward T. Channing.

The tutorships which Mr Child had held were not entirely in accordance with his tastes, which had always led him in the direction of literary and linguistic study. The faculty of the college was small, however, and it was not always possible to assign an instructor to the department that would have been most to his mind. But the governors of the institution were glad to secure the services of so promising a scholar; and Mr Child, whose preference for an academic career was decided, had felt that it was wise to accept such positions as the college could offer, leaving exacter adjustments to time and circumstances. Meantime he had devoted his whole leisure to the pursuit of his favorite studies. His first fruits were a volume entitled Four Old Plays[2] published in 1848, when he was but twenty-three years old. This was a remarkably competent performance. The texts are edited with judgment and accuracy; the introduction shows literary discrimination as well as sound scholarship, and the glossary and brief notes are thoroughly good. There are no signs of immaturity in the book, and it is still valued by students of our early drama.

The leave of absence granted to Mr Child in 1849 came at a most favorable moment. His health had suffered from close application to work, and a change of climate had been advised by his physicians. His intellectual and scholarly development, too, had reached that stage in which foreign study and travel were certain to be most stimulating and fruitful. He was amazingly apt, and two years of opportunity meant much more to him than to most men. He returned to take up the duties of his new office a trained and mature scholar, at home in the best methods and traditions of German universities, yet with no sacrifice of his individuality and intellectual independence.

While in Germany Mr Child studied at Berlin and Göttingen, giving his time mostly to Germanic philology, then cultivated with extraordinary vigor and success. The hour was singularly propitious. In the three or four decades preceding Mr Child's residence in Europe, Germanic philology (in the wider sense) had passed from the stage of "romantic" dilettantism into the condition of a well-organized and strenuous scientific discipline, but the freshness and vivacity of the first half of the century had not vanished. Scholars, however severe, looked through the form and strove to comprehend the spirit. The ideals of erudition and of a large humanity were not even suspected of incompatibility. The imagination was still invoked as the guide and illuminator of learning. The bond between antiquity and mediævalism and between the Middle Ages and our own century was never lost from sight. It was certainly fortunate for American scholarship that at precisely this juncture a young man of Mr Child's ardent love of learning, strong individuality, and broad intellectual sympathies was brought into close contact with all that was most quickening in German university life. He attended lectures on classical antiquity and philosophy, as well as on Germanic philology; but it was not so much by direct instruction that he profited as by the inspiration which he derived from the spirit and the ideals of foreign scholars, young and old. His own greatest contribution to learning, The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, may even, in a very real sense, be regarded as the fruit of these years in Germany. Throughout his life he kept a picture of William and James Grimm on the mantel over his study fireplace.

Mr Child wrote no "dissertation," and returned to Cambridge without having attempted to secure a doctor's degree. Never eager for such distinctions, he had been unwilling to subject himself to the restrictions on his plan of study which candidacy for the doctorate would have imposed. Three years after, however, in 1854, he was surprised and gratified to receive from the University of Göttingen the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, accompanied by a special tribute of respect from that institution. Subsequently he received the degree of LL. D. from Harvard (in 1884) and that of L. H. D. from Columbia (in 1887); but the Göttingen Ph. D., coming as it did at the outset of his career, was in a high degree auspicious.

The Boylston Professorship of Rhetoric and Oratory, to which, as has been already mentioned, Mr Child succeeded on his return to America toward the end of 1851, was no sinecure. In addition to academic instruction of the ordinary kind, the duties of the chair included the superintendence and criticism of a great quantity of written work, in the nature of essays and set compositions prepared by students of all degrees of ability. For twenty-five years Mr Child performed these duties with characteristic punctuality and devotion, though with increasing distaste for the drudgery which they involved. Meantime a great change had come over Harvard: it had developed from a provincial college into a national seminary of learning, and the introduction of the "elective system"—corresponding to the "Lernfreiheit" of Germany—had enabled it to become a university in the proper sense of the word. One result of the important reform just referred to was the establishment of a Professorship of English, entirely distinct from the old chair of Rhetoric. This took place on May 8, 1876, and on the 20th of the next month Mr Child was transferred to the new professorship. His duties as an instructor were now thoroughly congenial, and he continued to perform them with unabated vigor to the end. In the onerous details of administrative and advisory work, inseparable, according to our exacting American system, from the position of a university professor, he was equally faithful and untiring. For thirty years he acted as secretary of the Library Council, and in all that time he was absent from but three meetings. As chairman of the Department of English and of the Division of Modern Languages, and as a member of many important committees, he was ever prodigal of time and effort. How steadily he attended to the regular duties of the class-room, his pupils, for fifty years, are the best witnesses. They, too, will best understand the satisfaction he felt that, in the fiftieth year of his teaching, he was not absent from a single lecture. No man was ever less a formalist; yet the most formal of natures could not, in the strictest observance of punctilio, have surpassed the regularity with which he discharged, as it were spontaneously, the multifarious duties of his position.

Throughout his service as professor of rhetoric, Mr Child, hampered though he was by the requirements of his laborious office, had pursued with unquenchable ardor the study of the English language and literature, particularly in their older forms, and in these subjects he had become an authority of the first rank long before the establishment of the English chair enabled him to arrange his university teaching in accordance with his tastes. Soon after he returned from Germany he undertook the general editorial supervision of a series of the 'British Poets,' published at Boston in 1853 and several following years, and extending to some hundred and fifty volumes. Out of this grew, in one way or another, his three most important contributions to learning: his edition of Spenser, his Observations on the Language of Chaucer and Gower, and his English and Scottish Popular Ballads.

Mr Child's Spenser appeared in 1855.[3] Originally intended, as he says in the preface, as little more than a reprint of the edition published in 1839 under the superintendence of Mr George Hillard, the book grew upon his hands until it had become something quite different from its predecessor. Securing access to old copies of most of Spenser's poems, Mr Child subjected the text to a careful revision, which left little to be done in this regard. His Life of Spenser was far better than any previous biography, and his notes, though brief, were marked by a philological exactness to which former editions could not pretend. Altogether, though meant for the general reader and therefore sparingly annotated, Mr Child's volumes remain, after forty years, the best edition of Spenser in existence.

The plan of the 'British Poets' originally contemplated an edition of Chaucer, which Mr Child was to prepare. Becoming convinced, however, that the time was not ripe for such a work, he abandoned this project, and to the end of his life he never found time to resume it. Thomas Wright's print of the Canterbury Tales[4] from the Harleian MS. 7334 had, however, put into his hands a reasonably faithful reproduction of an old text, and he turned his attention to a minute study of Chaucer's language. The outcome was the publication, in the Memoirs of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences for 1863, of the great treatise to which Mr Child gave the modest title of Observations on the Language of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. It is difficult, at the present day, to imagine the state of Chaucer philology at the moment when this paper appeared. Scarcely anything, we may say, was known of Chaucer's grammar and metre in a sure and scientific way. Indeed, the difficulties to be solved had not even been clearly formulated. Further, the accessible mass of evidence on Anglo-Saxon and Middle English was, in comparison with the stores now at the easy command of every tyro, almost insignificant. Yet, in this brief treatise, Mr Child not only defined the problems, but provided for most of them a solution which the researches of younger scholars have only served to substantiate. He also gave a perfect model of the method proper to such inquiries—a method simple, laborious, and exact. The Observations were subsequently rearranged and condensed, with Professor Child's permission, by Mr A. J. Ellis for his work On Early English Pronunciation; but only those who have studied them in their original form can appreciate their merit fully. "It ought never to be forgotten," writes Professor Skeat, "that the only full and almost complete solution of the question of the right scansion of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales is due to what Mr Ellis rightly terms 'the wonderful industry, acuteness, and accuracy of Professor Child.'" Had he produced nothing else, this work, with its pendant, the Observations on Gower,[5] would have assured him a high place among those very few scholars who have permanently settled important problems of linguistic science.

Mr Child's crowning work, however, was the edition of the English and Scottish Popular Ballads, which the reader now has before him. The history of this is the history of more than half a lifetime.

The idea of the present work grew out of Mr Child's editorial labors on the series of the 'British Poets,' already referred to. For this he prepared a collection in eight small volumes (1857-58) called English and Scottish Ballads.[6] This was marked by the beginnings of that method of comparative study which is carried out to its ultimate issues in the volumes of the present collection. The book circulated widely, and was at once admitted to supersede all previous attempts in the same field. To Mr Child, however, it was but the starting-point for further researches. He soon formed the plan of a much more extensive collection on an altogether different model. This was to include every obtainable version of every extant English or Scottish ballad, with the fullest possible discussion of related songs or stories in the "popular" literature of all nations. To this enterprise he resolved, if need were, to devote the rest of his life. His first care was to secure trustworthy texts. In his earlier collection he had been forced to depend almost entirely on printed books. No progress, he was convinced, could be made till recourse could be had to manuscripts, and in particular to the Percy MS. Accordingly he directed his most earnest efforts to securing the publication of the entire contents of the famous folio. The Percy MS. was at Ecton Hall, in the possession of the Bishop's descendants, who would permit no one even to examine it. Two attempts were made by Dr Furnivall, at Mr Child's instance, to induce the owners to allow the manuscript to be printed,—one as early as 1860 or 1861, the other in 1864,—but without avail. A third attempt was more successful, and in 1867-68 the long-secluded folio was made the common property of scholars in an edition prepared by Professor Hales and Dr Furnivall.[7]

The publication of the Percy MS. not only put a large amount of trustworthy material at the disposal of Mr Child; it exposed the full enormity of Bishop Percy's sins against popular tradition. Some shadow of suspicion inevitably fell on all other ballad collections. It was more than ever clear to Mr Child that he could not safely take anything at second hand, and he determined not to print a line of his projected work till he had exhausted every effort to get hold of whatever manuscript material might be in existence. His efforts in this direction continued through many years. A number of manuscripts were in private hands; of some the whereabouts was not known; of others the existence was not suspected. But Mr Child was untiring. He was cordially assisted by various scholars, antiquaries, and private gentlemen, to whose coöperation ample testimony is borne in the Advertisements prefixed to the volumes in the present work. Some manuscripts were secured[Pg xxviii] for the Library of Harvard University—notably Bishop Percy's Papers, the Kinloch MSS, and the Harris MS.,[8]—and of others careful copies were made, which became the property of the same library. In all these operations the indispensable good offices of Mr William Macmath, of Edinburgh, deserve particular mention. For a long series of years his services were always at Mr Child's disposal. His self-sacrifice and generosity appear to have been equalled only by his perseverance and wonderful accuracy. But for him the manuscript basis of The English and Scottish Popular Ballads would have been far less strong than it is.

Gradually, then, the manuscript materials came in, until at last, in 1882, Mr Child felt justified in beginning to print. Other important documents were, however, discovered or made accessible as time went on. Especially noteworthy was the great find at Abbotsford (see the Advertisement to Part VIII). In 1877 Dr David Laing procured, "not without difficulty," leave to prepare for Mr Child a copy of the single manuscript of ballads then known to remain in the library at Abbotsford. This MS., entitled "Scottish Songs," was so inconsiderable, in proportion to the accumulations which Sir Walter Scott had made in preparing his Border Minstrelsy, that further search seemed to be imperatively necessary. In 1890 permission to make such a search, and to use the results, was given by the Honorable Mrs Maxwell-Scott. The investigation, made by Mr Macmath, yielded a rich harvest of ballads, which were utilized in Parts VII-IX. To dwell upon the details would be endless. The reader may see a list of the manuscript sources at pp. 397 ff. of the fifth volume; and, if he will observe how scattered they were, he will have no difficulty in believing that it required years, labor, and much delicate negotiation to bring them all together. One manuscript remained undiscoverable, William Tytler's Brown MS., but there is no reason to believe that this contained anything of consequence that is not otherwise known.[9]

Meanwhile, concurrently with the toil of amassing, collating, and arranging texts, went on the far more arduous labor of comparative study of the ballads of all nations; for, in accordance with Mr Child's plan it was requisite to determine, in the fullest manner, the history and foreign relations of every piece included in his collection. To this end he devoted much time and unwearied diligence to forming, in the Library of the University, a special collection of "Folk-lore," particularly of ballads, romances, and Märchen. This priceless collection, the formation of which must be looked on as one of Mr Child's most striking services to the university, numbers some 7000 volumes. But these figures by no means represent the richness of the Library in the departments concerned, or the services of Mr Child in this particular. Mediæval literature in all its phases was his province, and thousands of volumes classified in other departments of the University Library bear testimony to his vigilance in ordering books, and his astonishing bibliographical knowledge. Very few books are cited in the present collection which are not to be found on the shelves of this Library.

In addition, Mr Child made an effort to stimulate the collection of such remains of the traditional ballad as still live on the lips of the people in this country and in the British Islands. The harvest was, in his opinion, rather scanty; yet, if all the versions thus recovered from tradition were enumerated, the number would not be found inconsiderable. Enough was done, at all events, to make it clear that little or nothing of value remains to be recovered in this way.

To readers familiar with such studies, no comment is necessary, and to those who are unfamiliar with them, no form of statement can convey even a faint impression of the industry, the learning, the acumen, and the literary skill which these processes required. In writing the history of a single ballad, Mr Child was sometimes forced to examine hundreds of books in perhaps a dozen different languages. But his industry was unflagging, his sagacity was scarcely ever at fault, and his linguistic and literary knowledge seemed to have no bounds. He spared no pains to perfect his work in every detail, and his success was commensurate with his efforts. In the Advertisement to the Ninth Part (1894), he was able to report that the three hundred and five numbers of his collection comprised the whole extant mass of this traditional material, with the possible exception of a single ballad.[10]

In June, 1896, Mr Child concluded his fiftieth year of service as a teacher in Harvard College. He was at this time hard at work on the Tenth and final Part, which was to contain a glossary, various indexes, a bibliography, and an elaborate introduction on the general subject. For years he had allowed himself scarcely any respite from work, and, in spite of the uncertain condition of his health,—or perhaps in consequence of it,—he continued to work at high pressure throughout the summer. At the end of August he discovered that he was seriously ill. He died at Boston on the 11th day of September. He had finished his great work except for the introduction and the general bibliography. The bibliography was in preparation by another hand and has since been completed. The introduction, however, no other scholar had the hardihood to undertake. A few pages of manuscript,—the last thing written by his pen,—almost illegible, were found among his papers to show that he had actually begun the composition of this essay, and many sheets of excerpts testified to the time he had spent in refreshing his memory as to the opinions of his predecessors, but he had left no collectanea that could be utilized in supplying the Introduction itself. He was accustomed to carry much of his material in his memory till the moment of composition arrived, and this habit accounts for the fact that there are no jottings of opinions and no sketch of precisely what line of argument he intended to take.

Mr Child's sudden death was felt as a bitter personal loss, not only by an unusually large circle of attached friends in both hemispheres, but by very many scholars who knew him through his works alone. He was one of the few learned men to whom the old title of "Master" was justly due and freely accorded. With astonishing erudition, which nothing seemed to have escaped, he united an infectious enthusiasm and a power of lucid and fruitful exposition that made him one of the greatest of teachers, and a warmth and openness of heart that won the affection of all who knew him. In most men, however complex their characters, one can distinguish the qualities of the heart, in some degree, from the qualities of the head. In Professor Child no such distinction was possible, for all the elements of his many-sided nature were fused in his marked and powerful individuality. In his case, the scholar and the man cannot be separated. His life and his learning were one; his work was the expression of himself.

As an investigator Professor Child was at once the inspiration and the despair of his disciples. Nothing could surpass the scientific exactness of his methods and the unwearied diligence with which he conducted his researches. No possible source of information could elude him; no book or manuscript was too voluminous or too unpromising for him to examine on the chance of its containing some fact that might correct or supplement his material, even in the minutest point. Yet these qualities of enthusiastic accuracy and thoroughness, admirable as they undoubtedly were, by no means dominated him. They were always at the command of the higher qualities of his genius,—sagacity, acumen, and a kind of sympathetic and imaginative power in which he stood almost alone among recent scholars. No detail of language or tradition or archæology was to him a mere lifeless fact; it was transmuted into something vital, and became a part of that universal humanity which always moved him wherever he found it, whether in the pages of a mediæval chronicle, or in the stammering accents of a late and vulgarly distorted ballad, or in the faces of the street boys who begged roses from his garden. No man ever felt a keener interest in his kind, and no scholar ever brought this interest into more vivifying contact with the technicalities of his special studies. The exuberance of this large humanity pervades his edition of the English and Scottish ballads. Even in his last years, when the languor of uncertain health sometimes got the better, for a season, of the spirit with which he commonly worked, some fresh bit of genuine poetry in a ballad, some fine trait of pure nature in a stray folk-tale, would, in an instant, bring back the full flush of that enthusiasm which he must have felt when the possibilities of his achievement first presented themselves to his mind in early manhood. For such a nature there was no old age.

From this ready sympathy came that rare faculty—seldom possessed by scholars—which made Professor Child peculiarly fit for his greatest task. Few persons understand the difficulties of ballad investigation. In no field of literature have the forger and the manipulator worked with greater vigor and success. From Percy's day to our own it has been thought an innocent device to publish a bit of one's own versifying, now and then, as an "old ballad" or an "ancient song." Often, too, a late stall-copy of a ballad, getting into oral circulation, has been innocently furnished to collectors as traditional matter. Mere learning will not guide an editor through these perplexities. What is needed is, in addition, a complete understanding of the "popular" genius, a sympathetic recognition of the traits that characterize oral literature wherever and in whatever degree they exist. This faculty, which even the folk has not retained, and which collectors living in ballad-singing and tale-telling times have often failed to acquire, was vouchsafed by nature herself to this sedentary scholar. In reality a kind of instinct, it had been so cultivated by long and loving study of the traditional literature of all nations that it had become wonderfully swift in its operations and almost infallible. A forged or retouched piece could not deceive him for a moment; he detected the slightest jar in the genuine ballad tone. He speaks in one place of certain writers "who would have been all the better historians for a little reading of romances." He was himself the better interpreter of the poetry of art for this keen sympathy with the poetry of nature.

Constant association with the spirit of the folk did its part in maintaining, under the stress of unremitting study and research, that freshness and buoyancy of mind which was the wonder of all who met Professor Child for the first time, and the perpetual delight of his friends and associates. It is impossible to describe the charm of his familiar conversation. There was endless variety without effort. His peculiar humor, taking shape in a thousand felicities of thought and phrase that fell casually and as it were inevitably from his lips, exhilarated without reaction or fatigue. His lightest words were full of fruitful suggestion. Sudden strains of melancholy or high seriousness were followed, in a moment, by flashes of gaiety almost boyish. And pervading it all one felt the attraction of his personality and the goodness of his heart.

Professor Child's humor was not only one of his most striking characteristics as a man; it was of constant service to his scholarly researches. Keenly alive to any incongruity in thought or fact, and the least self-conscious of men, he scrutinized his own nascent theories with the same humorous shrewdness with which he looked at the ideas of others. It is impossible to think of him as the sponsor of some hypotheses which men of equal eminence have advanced and defended with passion; and, even if his goodness of nature had not prevented it, his sense of the ridiculous would not have suffered him to engage in the absurdities of philological polemics. In the interpretation of literature, his humor stood him in good stead, keeping his native sensibility under due control, so that it never degenerated into sentimentalism. It made him a marvelous interpreter of Chaucer, whose spirit he had caught to a degree attained by no other scholar or critic.

To younger scholars Professor Child was an influence at once stimulating and benignant. To confer with him was always to be stirred to greater effort, but, at the same time, the serenity of his devotion to learning chastened the petulance of immature ambition in others. The talk might be quite concrete, even definitely practical,—it might deal with indifferent matters; but, in some way, there was an irradiation of the master's nature that dispelled all unworthy feelings. In the presence of his noble modesty the bustle of self-assertion was quieted and the petty spirit of pedantic wrangling could not assert itself. However severe his criticism, there were no personalities in it. He could not be other than outspoken,—concealment and shuffling were abhorrent to him,—yet such was his kindliness that his frankest judgments never wounded; even his reproofs left no sting. With his large charity was associated, as its necessary complement in a strong character, a capacity for righteous indignation. "He is almost the only man I know," said one in his lifetime, "who thinks no evil." There could be no truer word. Yet when he was confronted with injury or oppression, none could stand against the anger of this just man. His unselfishness did not suffer him to see offences against himself, but wrong done to another roused him in an instant to protesting action.

Professor Child's publications, despite their magnitude and importance, are no adequate measure either of his acquirements or of his influence. He printed nothing about Shakspere, for example, yet he was the peer of any Shaksperian, past or present, in knowledge and interpretative power. As a Chaucer scholar he had no superior, in this country or in Europe: his published work was confined, as we have seen, to questions of language, but no one had a wider or closer acquaintance with the whole subject. An edition of Chaucer from his hand would have been priceless. His acquaintance with letters was not confined to special authors or centuries. He was at home in modern European literature and profoundly versed in that of the Middle Ages. In his immediate territory,—English,—his knowledge, linguistic and literary, covered all periods, and was alike exact and thorough. His taste and judgment were exquisite, and he enlightened every subject which he touched. As a writer, he was master of a singularly felicitous style, full of individuality and charm. Had his time not been occupied in other ways, he would have made the most delightful of essayists.

Fortunately, Professor Child's courses of instruction in the university—particularly those on Chaucer and Shakspere—gave him an opportunity to impart to a constantly increasing circle of pupils the choicest fruits of his life of thought and study. In his later years he had the satisfaction to see grow up about him a school of young specialists who can have no higher ambition than to be worthy of their master. But his teaching was not limited to these,—it included all sorts and conditions of college students; and none, not even the idle and incompetent, could fail to catch something of his spirit. One thing may be safely asserted: no university teacher was ever more beloved.

And with this may fitly close too slight a tribute to the memory of a great scholar and a good man. Many things remain unsaid. His gracious family life, his civic virtues, his patriotism, his bounty to the poor,—all must be passed by with a bare mention, which yet will signify much to those who knew him. In all ways he lived worthily, and he died having attained worthy ends.

G. L. Kittredge.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] C. E. Norton, 'Francis James Child,' in the Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, XXXII, 334, 335; reprinted, with some additions, in the Harvard Graduates' Magazine, VI, 161-169 (Boston, 1897). I have used this biographical sketch freely in my brief account of Professor Child's boyhood.

[2] Four Old Plays | Three Interludes: Thersytes Jack Jugler | and Heywoods Pardoner and Frere: | and Jocasta a Tragedy | by Gascoigne and | Kinwelmarsh | with an | Introduction and Notes | Cambridge | George Nichols | MDCCCXLVIII. The editor's name does not appear in the title-page, but the Preface is signed with the initials F. J. C. Jocasta was printed from Steevens's copy of the first edition of Garcoigne's Posies, which had come into Mr Child's possession.

[3] The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser. The text carefully revised, and illustrated with notes, original and selected, by Francis J. Child. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company. 1855. 5 vols.

[4] The Canterbury Tales of Geoffrey Chaucer. A new text, with illustrative notes. Edited by Thomas Wright. London, printed for the Percy Society, 1847-51. 3 vols.

[5] The paper entitled Observations on the Language of Chaucer was laid before the American Academy of Arts and Sciences on June 3, 1862, and was published in the Memoirs of the Academy, Vol. VIII, pt. ii, 445-502 (Boston, 1863). The second paper, entitled Observations on the Language of Gower's Confessio Amantis, was laid before the Academy on January 9, 1866, and appeared in Memoirs, IX, ii, 265-315 (Boston, 1873). A few copies of each paper were struck off separately, but these are now very hard to find. Mr Ellis's rearrangement and amalgamation of the two papers, which is by no means a good substitute for the papers themselves, may be found in Part I of his Early English Pronunciation, London, 1869, pp. 343-97.

[6] English and Scottish Ballads. Selected and edited by Francis James Child. Boston, 1857-58.

[7] How inseparable were the services of Dr Furnivall and those of Professor Child in securing this devoutly wished consummation may be seen by comparing Dr Furnivall's Forewords (I, ix, x), in which he gives much of the credit to Mr Child, with Mr Child's Dedication (in vol. I of the present collection), in which he gives the credit to Dr Furnivall.

[8] Since Mr Child's death the important "Buchan original MS" has been secured for the Child Memorial Library of the University,—a collection endowed by friends and pupils of the dead master.

[9] See V, 397 b.

[10] This is 'Young Betrice,' No 5 in William Tytler's lost Brown MS. (V, 397), which "may possibly be a version of 'Hugh Spencer's Feats in France'" (see II, 377; III, 275).

1
RIDDLES WISELY EXPOUNDED

A. a. 'A Noble Riddle Wisely Expounded; or, The Maid's Answer to the Knight's Three Questions,' 4to, Rawlinson, 566, fol. 193, Bodleian Library; Wood, E. 25, fol. 15, Bod. Lib. b. Pepys, III, 19, No 17, Magdalen College, Cambridge. c. Douce, II, fol. 168 b, Bod. Lib. d. 'A Riddle Wittily Expounded,' Pills to Purge Melancholy, IV, 129, ed. 1719. "II, 129, ed. 1712."

B. 'The Three Sisters.' Some Ancient Christmas Carols ... together with two Ancient Ballads, etc. By Davies Gilbert, 2d ed., p. 65.

C. 'The Unco Knicht's Wowing,' Motherwell's MS., p. 647.

D. Motherwell's MS., p. 142.

The four copies of A differ but very slightly: a, b, c are broadsides, and d is evidently of that derivation, a and b are of the 17th century. There is another broadside in the Euing collection, formerly Halliwell's, No 253. The version in The Borderer's Table Book, VII, 83, was compounded by Dixon from others previously printed.

Riddles, as is well known, play an important part in popular story, and that from very remote times. No one needs to be reminded of Samson, Œdipus, Apollonius of Tyre. Riddle-tales, which, if not so old as the oldest of these, may be carried in all likelihood some centuries beyond our era, still live in Asiatic and European tradition, and have their representatives in popular ballads. The largest class of these tales is that in which one party has to guess another's riddles, or two rivals compete in giving or guessing, under penalty in either instance of forfeiting life or some other heavy wager; an example of which is the English ballad, modern in form, of 'King John and the Abbot of Canterbury.' In a second class, a suitor can win a lady's hand only by guessing riddles, as in our 'Captain Wedderburn's Courtship' and 'Proud Lady Margaret.' There is sometimes a penalty of loss of life for the unsuccessful, but not in these ballads. Thirdly, there is the tale (perhaps an offshoot of an early form of the first) of The Clever Lass, who wins a husband, and sometimes a crown, by guessing riddles, solving difficult but practicable problems, or matching and evading impossibilities; and of this class versions A and B of the present ballad and A-H of the following are specimens.

Ballads like our 1, A, B, 2, A-H, are very common in German. Of the former variety are the following:

A. 'Räthsellied,' Büsching, Wöchentliche Nachrichten, I, 65, from the neighborhood of Stuttgart. The same, Erlach, III, 37; Wunderhorn, IV, 139; Liederhort, p. 338, No 153; Erk u. Irmer, H. 5, p. 32, No 29; Mittler, No 1307 (omits the last stanza); Zuccalmaglio, II, 574, No 317 [with change in st. 11]. A knight meets a maid on the road, dismounts, and says, "I will ask you a riddle; if you guess it, you shall be my wife." She answers, "Your riddle shall soon be guessed; I will do my best to be your wife;" guesses eight pairs of riddles, is taken up behind him, and they ride off. B. 'Räthsel um Räthsel,' Wunderhorn, II, 407 [429, 418] == Erlach, I, 439. Zuccalmaglio, II, 572, No 316, rearranges, but adds nothing. Mittler, No 1306, inserts three stanzas (7, 9, 10). This version begins: "Maid, I will give you some riddles, and if you guess them will marry you." There are seven pairs, and, these guessed, the man says, "I can't give you riddles; let's marry;" to which she gives no coy assent: but this conclusion is said not to be genuine (Liederhort, p. 341, note). C. 'Räthsellied,' Erk, Neue Sammlung, Heft 3, p. 64, No 57, and Liederhort, 340, No 153^a two Brandenburg versions, nearly agreeing, one with six, the other with five, pairs of riddles. A proper conclusion not having been obtained, the former was completed by the two last stanzas of B, which are suspicious. C begins like B. D. 'Räthselfragen,' Peter, Volksthümliches aus Österreichisch-Schlesien, I, 272, No 83. A knight rides by where two maids are sitting, one of whom salutes him, the other not. He says to the former, "I will put you three questions, and if you can answer them will marry you." He asks three, then six more, then three, and then two, and, all being answered, bids her, since she is so witty, build a house on a needle's point, and put in as many windows as there are stars in the sky; which she parries with, "When all streams flow together, and all trees shall fruit, and all thorns bear roses, then come for your answer." E. 'Räthsellied,' Tschischka u. Schottky, Oesterreichische Volkslieder, 2d ed., p. 28, begins like B, C, has only three pairs of riddles, and ends with the same task of building a house on a needle's point. F. 'Räthsellied,' Hocker, Volkslieder von der Mosel, in Wolf's Zeits. für deutsche Myth., I, 251, from Trier, begins with the usual promise, has five pairs of riddles, and no conclusion. G. 'Räthsel,' Ditfurth, Fränkische V. L., II, 110, No 146, has the same beginning, six pairs of riddles, and no conclusion.

Some of the riddles occur in nearly all the versions, some in only one or two, and there is now and then a variation also in the answers. Those which are most frequent are:

Which is the maid without a tress? A-D, G. And which is the tower without a crest? A-D, F, G. (Maid-child in the cradle; tower of Babel.) Which is the water without any sand? A, B, C, F, G. And which is the king without any land? A, B, C, F, G. (Water in the eyes; king in cards.) Where is no dust in all the road? A-G. Where is no leaf in all the wood? A-G. (The milky way, or a river; a fir-wood.) Which is the fire that never burnt? A, C-G. And which is the sword without a point? C-G. (A painted fire; a broken sword.) Which is the house without a mouse? C-G. Which is the beggar without a louse? C-G. (A snail's house; a painted beggar.)[11]

A ballad translated in Ralston's Songs of the Russian People, p. 356, from Buslaef's Historical Sketches of National Literature and Art, I, 31, resembles very closely German A. A merchant's son drives by a garden where a girl is gathering flowers. He salutes her; she returns her thanks. Then the ballad proceeds:

'Shall I ask thee riddles, beauteous maiden? Six wise riddles shall I ask thee?' 'Ask them, ask them, merchant's son, Prithee ask the six wise riddles.' 'Well then, maiden, what is higher than the forest? Also, what is brighter than the light? Also, maiden, what is thicker than the forest? Also, maiden, what is there that's rootless? Also, maiden, what is never silent? Also, what is there past finding out?' 'I will answer, merchant's son, will answer, All the six wise riddles will I answer. Higher than the forest is the moon; Brighter than the light the ruddy sun; Thicker than the forest are the stars; Rootless is, O merchant's son, a stone; Never silent, merchant's son, the sea; And God's will is past all finding out.' 'Thou hast guessed, O maiden fair, guessed rightly, All the six wise riddles hast thou answered; Therefore now to me shalt thou be wedded, Therefore, maiden, shalt thou be the merchant's wife.'[12]

Among the Gaels, both Scotch and Irish, a ballad of the same description is extremely well known. Apparently only the questions are preserved in verse, and the connection with the story made by a prose comment. Of these questions there is an Irish form, dated 1738, which purports to be copied from a manuscript of the twelfth century. Fionn would marry no lady whom he could pose. Graidhne, "daughter of the king of the fifth of Ullin," answered everything he asked, and became his wife. Altogether there are thirty-two questions in the several versions. Among them are: What is blacker than the raven? (There is death.) What is whiter than the snow? (There is the truth.) 'Fionn's Questions,' Campbell's Popular Tales of the West Highlands, III, 36; 'Fionn's Conversation with Ailbhe,'Heroic Gaelic Ballads, by the same, pp. 150, 151.

The familiar ballad-knight of A, B is converted in C into an "unco knicht," who is the devil, a departure from the proper story which is found also in 2 J. The conclusion of C,

As soon as she the fiend did name, He flew awa in a blazing flame,

reminds us of the behavior of trolls and nixes under like circumstances, but here the naming amounts to a detection of the Unco Knicht's quiddity, acts as an exorcism, and simply obliges the fiend to go off in his real character. D belongs with C: it was given by the reciter as a colloquy between the devil and a maiden.

The earlier affinities of this ballad can be better shown in connection with No 2.

Translated, after B and A, in Grundtvig's Engelske og skotske Folkeviser, p. 181: Herder, Volkslieder, I, 95, after A d.

A

a. Broadside in the Rawlinson collection, 4to, 566, fol. 193, Wood, E. 25, fol. 15. b. Pepys, III, 19, No 17. c. Douce, II, fol. 168 b. d. Pills to Purge Melancholy, IV, 130, ed. 1719.

1 There was a lady of the North Country, Lay the bent to the bonny broom And she had lovely daughters three. Fa la la la, fa la la la ra re

2 There was a knight of noble worth Which also lived in the North.

3 The knight, of courage stout and brave, A wife he did desire to have.

4 He knocked at the ladie's gate One evening when it was late.

5 The eldest sister let him in, And pin'd the door with a silver pin.

6 The second sister she made his bed, And laid soft pillows under his head.

7 The youngest daughter that same night, She went to bed to this young knight.

8 And in the morning, when it was day, These words unto him she did say:

9 'Now you have had your will,' quoth she, 'I pray, sir knight, will you marry me?'

10 The young brave knight to her replyed, 'Thy suit, fair maid, shall not be deny'd.

11 'If thou canst answer me questions three, This very day will I marry thee.'

12 'Kind sir, in love, O then,' quoth she, 'Tell me what your [three] questions be.'

13 'O what is longer than the way, Or what is deeper than the sea?

14 'Or what is louder than the horn, Or what is sharper than a thorn?

15 'Or what is greener than the grass, Or what is worse then a woman was?'

16 'O love is longer than the way, And hell is deeper than the sea.

17 'And thunder is louder than the horn, And hunger is sharper than a thorn.

18 'And poyson is greener than the grass, And the Devil is worse than woman was.'

19 When she these questions answered had, The knight became exceeding glad.

20 And having [truly] try'd her wit, He much commended her for it.

21 And after, as it is verifi'd, He made of her his lovely bride.

22 So now, fair maidens all, adieu, This song I dedicate to you.

23 I wish that you may constant prove Vnto the man that you do love.

B

Gilbert's Christmas Carols, 2d ed., p. 65, from the editor's recollection. West of England.

1 There were three sisters fair and bright, Jennifer gentle and rosemaree And they three loved one valiant knight. As the dew flies over the mulberry tree

2 The eldest sister let him in, And barred the door with a silver pin.

3 The second sister made his bed, And placed soft pillows under his head.

4 The youngest sister, fair and bright, Was resolved for to wed with this valiant knight.

5 'And if you can answer questions three, O then, fair maid, I will marry with thee.

6 'What is louder than an horn, And what is sharper than a thorn?'

7 'Thunder is louder than an horn, And hunger is sharper than a thorn.'

8 'What is broader than the way, And what is deeper than the sea?'

9 'Love is broader than the way, And hell is deeper than the sea.'

* * * * *

10 . . . . . . . 'And now, fair maid, I will marry with thee.'

C

Motherwell's MS., p. 647. From the recitation of Mrs Storie.

1 There was a knicht riding frae the east, Sing the Cather banks, the bonnie brume Wha had been wooing at monie a place. And ye may beguile a young thing sune

2 He came unto a widow's door And speird whare her three dochters were.

3 The auldest ane's to a washing gane, The second's to a baking gane.

4 The youngest ane's to a wedding gane, And it will be nicht or she be hame.

5 He sat him doun upon a stane, Till thir three lasses came tripping hame.

6 The auldest ane's to the bed making, And the second ane's to the sheet spreading.

7 The youngest ane was bauld and bricht, And she was to lye with this unco knicht.

8 'Gin ye will answer me questions ten, The morn ye sall be made my ain.

9 'O what is heigher nor the tree? And what is deeper nor the sea?

10 'Or what is heavier nor the lead? And what is better nor the breid?

11 'O what is whiter nor the milk? Or what is safter nor the silk?

12 'Or what is sharper nor a thorn? Or what is louder nor a horn?

13 'Or what is greener nor the grass? Or what is waur nor a woman was?'

14 'O heaven is higher nor the tree, And hell is deeper nor the sea.

15 'O sin is heavier nor the lead, The blessing's better nor the bread.

16 'The snaw is whiter nor the milk, And the down is safter nor the silk.

17 'Hunger is sharper nor a thorn, And shame is louder nor a horn.

18 'The pies are greener nor the grass, And Clootie's waur nor a woman was.'

19 As sune as she the fiend did name, He flew awa in a blazing flame.

D

Motherwell's MS., p. 142.

1 'O what is higher than the trees? Gar lay the bent to the bonny broom And what is deeper than the seas? And you may beguile a fair maid soon

2 'O what is whiter than the milk? Or what is softer than the silk?

3 'O what is sharper than the thorn? O what is louder than the horn?

4 'O what is longer than the way? And what is colder than the clay?

5 'O what is greener than the grass? And what is worse than woman was?'

6 'O heaven's higher than the trees, And hell is deeper than the seas.

7 'And snow is whiter than the milk, And love is softer than the silk.

8 'O hunger's sharper than the thorn, And thunder's louder than the horn.

9 'O wind is longer than the way, And death is colder than the clay.

10 'O poison's greener than the grass, And the Devil's worse than eer woman was.'

A. a.

Title. A Noble Riddle wisely Expounded: or, The Maids answer to the Knights Three Questions.

She with her excellent wit and civil carriage, Won a young Knight to joyn with him in marriage; This gallant couple now is man and wife, And she with him doth lead a pleasant Life.

Tune of Lay the bent to the bonny broom.

WOODCUT OF

THE KNIGHT.

WOODCUT OF

THE MAID.

c. Knights questions. Wed a knight ... with her in marriage.

a. Printed for F. Coles, T. Vere, I. Wright, and I. Clarke.

b. Printed for W. Thackeray, E.M. and A.M.

c. Licens'd according to Order. London. Printed by Tho. Norris, at the L[o]oking glass on London-bridge. And sold by J. Walter, in High Holborn.

In Rawlinson and Wood the first seven lines are in Roman and Italic type; the remainder being in black letter and Roman. The Pepys copy has one line of the ballad in black letter and one line in Roman type. The Douce edition is in Roman and Italic.

A.

1¹, c, i' th' North: d, in the.

3¹. c, This knight.

5¹. a, b, c, d, The youngest sister.

7¹. b, d, The youngest that same. c, that very same.

7². a, with this young knight.

9². d, sir knight, you marry me.

After 10, there is a wood-cut of the knight and the maid in a; in b two cuts of the knight.

11². c, I'll marry. d, I will.

12¹. c omits in love.

12². b, c, d, three questions.

14¹. d, a horn.

After 15: a, Here follows the Damosel's answer to the Knight's Three Questions: c, The Damsel's Answers To The Knight's Questions: d, The Damsel's Answer to the Three Questions.

17, 18. b, c, d, thunder's, hunger's, poyson's, devil's.

18². d, the woman.

19¹. c, those.

20. a, b omit truly.

21¹. b, c, d, as 't is.

B.

The burden is printed by Gilbert, in the text, "Jennifer gentle and Rosemaree." He appears to take Jennifer and Rosemaree to be names of the sisters. As printed under the music, the burden runs,

Juniper, Gentle and Rosemary.

No doubt, juniper and rosemary, simply, are meant; Gentle might possibly be for gentian. In 2 H the burden is,

Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme:

curiously varied in I thus:

Every rose grows merry wi thyme:

and in G,

Sober and grave grows merry in time.

C.

18. "Vergris in another set." M.

D.

MS. before st. 1, "The Devil speaks;" before st. 6, "The maiden speaks."

FOOTNOTES:

[11] D 4, What is green as clover? What is white as milk? comes near to English A 15, C 13, D 5, What is greener than grass? C 11, D 2, What is whiter than milk? We have again, What is greener than grass? in 'Capt. Wedderburn's Courtship,' A 12; What is whiter than snow? What is greener than clover? in 'Räthselfragen,' Firmenich, Germaniens Völkerstimmen, III, 634; in 'Kranzsingen,' Erk's Liederhort, p. 342, 3; 'Traugemundslied,' 11; 'Ein Spiel von den Freiheit,' Fastnachtspiele aus dem 15n Jahrhundert, II, 555; Altdeutsche Wälder, III, 138. So, What is whiter than a swan? in many of the versions of Svend Vonved, Grundtvig, III, 786; IV, 742-3-7-8; Afzelius, II, 139, etc.; and Sin is blacker than a sloe, or coal (cf. C 15, Sin is heavier nor the lead), Grundtvig, I, 240, 247; IV, 748, 9; Afzelius, II, 139. The road without dust and the tree without leaves are in 'Ein Spiel von den Freiheit,' p. 557; and in Meier, Deutsche Kinderreime, p. 84, no doubt a fragment of a ballad, as also the verses in Firmenich. The question in German, A 4, Welches ist das trefflichste Holz? (die Rebe) is in the Anglo-Saxon prose Salomon and Saturn: Kemble, Sal. and Sat. 188, No 40; 204; see also 287, 10. Riddle verses with little or no story (sometimes fragments of ballads like D) are frequent. The Traugemundslied, Uhland, I, 3, and the Spiel von den Freiheit, Fastnachtspiele, II, 553, have only as much story as will serve as an excuse for long strings of riddles. Shorter pieces of the kind are (Italian) Kaden, Italiens Wunderhern, p. 14; (Servian) 'The Maid and the Fish,' Vuk, I, 196, No 285, Talvj, II, 176, Goetze, Serbische V. L., p. 75, Bowring, Servian Popular Poetry, p. 184; (Polish) Wojcicki, I, 203; (Wendish) Haupt and Schmaler, I, 177, No 150, II, 69, No 74; (Russian) Wenzig, Bibliothek Slav. Poesie, p. 174; (Esthonian) Neus, Ehstnische V. L., 390 ff, and Fosterländskt Album, I, 13, Prior, Ancient Danish Ballads, II, 341.

[12] 'Capt. Wedderburn's Courtship,' 12: What's higher than the tree? (heaven). Wojcicki, Pieśni, I, 203, l. 11, 206, l. 3; What grows without a root? (a stone).

2
THE ELFIN KNIGHT

A. 'A proper new ballad entituled The Wind hath blown my Plaid away, or, A Discourse betwixt a young [Wo]man and the Elphin Knight;' a broadside in black letter in the Pepysian library, bound up at the end of a copy of Blind Harry's 'Wallace,' Edin. 1673.

B. 'A proper new ballad entitled The Wind hath blawn my Plaid awa,' etc. Webster, A Collection of Curious Old Ballads, p. 3.

C. 'The Elfin Knicht,' Kinloch's Anc. Scott. Ballads, p. 145.

D. 'The Fairy Knight,' Buchan, II, 296.

E. Motherwell's MS., p. 492.

F. 'Lord John,' Kinloch MSS, I, 75.

G. 'The Cambrick Shirt,' Gammer Gorton's Garland, p. 3, ed. 1810.

H. 'The Deil's Courtship,' Motherwell's MS., p. 92.

I. 'The Deil's Courting,' Motherwell's MS., p. 103.

J. Communicated by Rev. Dr Huntington, Bishop of Western New York, as sung at Hadley, Mass.

K. Halliwell's Nursery Rhymes of England, p. 109, No 171, 6th ed.

L. Notes and Queries, 1st S., VII, 8.

Pinkerton gave the first information concerning A, in Ancient Scotish Poems ... from the MS. collections of Sir Richard Maitland, etc., II, 496, and he there printed the first and last stanzas of the broadside. Motherwell printed the whole in the appendix to his Minstrelsy, No I. What stands as the last stanza in the broadside is now prefixed to the ballad, as having been the original burden. It is the only example, so far as I remember, which our ballads afford of a burden of this kind, one that is of greater extent than the stanza with which it was sung, though this kind of burden seems to have been common enough with old songs and carols.[13]

The "old copy in black letter" used for B was close to A, if not identical, and has the burden-stem at the end like A. 'The Jockey's Lamentation,' Pills to Purge Melancholy, v, 317, has the burden,

'Tis oer the hills and far away [thrice], The wind hath blown my plaid away.

The 'Bridal Sark,' Cromek's Remains of Nithsdale and Galloway Song, p. 108, and 'The Bridegroom Darg,' p. 113, are of modern manufacture and impostures; at least, they seem to have imposed upon Cromek.

A like ballad is very common in German. A man would take, or keep, a woman for his love or his wife [servant, in one case], if she would spin brown silk from oaten straw. She will do this if he will make clothes for her of the linden-leaf. Then she must bring him shears from the middle of the Rhine. But first he must build her a bridge from a single twig, etc., etc. To this effect, with some variations in the tasks set, in A, 'Eitle Dinge,' Rhaw, Bicinia (1545), Uhland, I, 14, No 4 A, Böhme, p. 376, No 293. B. 'Van ideln unmöglichen Dingen,' Neocorus († c. 1630), Chronik des Landes Ditmarschen, ed. Dahlmann, p. 180 == Uhland, p. 15, No 4 B, Müllenhof, p. 473, Böhme, p. 376, No 294. C. Wunderhorn, II, 410 [431] == Erlach, I, 441, slightly altered in Kretzschmer [Zuccalmaglio], II, 620. D. 'Unmöglichkeiten,' Schmeller, Die Mundarten Bayerns, p. 556. E. Schlesische Volkslieder, p. 115, No 93. F. 'Liebes-Neckerei,' Meier, Schwäbische V. L., p. 114, No 39. G. 'Liebesspielereien,' Ditfurth, Fränkische V. L., II, 109, No 144. H. 'Von eitel unmöglichen Dingen,' Erk's Liederhort, p. 337, No 152^b. I. 'Unmögliches Begehren,' V. L. aus Oesterreich, Deutsches Museum, 1862, II, 806, No 16. J. 'Unmögliche Dinge,' Peter, Volksthümliches aus Österreichisch-Schlesien, I, 270, No 82. In K, 'Wettgesang,' Meinert, p. 80, and L, Liederhort, p. 334, No 152, there is a simple contest of wits between a youth and a maid, and in M, Erk, Neue Sammlung, H. 2, No 11, p. 16, and N, 'Wunderbare Aufgaben,' Pröhle, Weltliche u. geistliche Volkslieder, p. 36, No 22 B, the wit-contest is added to the very insipid ballad of 'Gemalte Rosen.'

'Store Fordringar,' Kristensen, Jydske Folkeviser, I, 221, No 82, and 'Opsang,' Lindeman, Norske Fjeldmelodier, No 35 (Text Bilag, p. 6), closely resemble German M, N. In the Stev, or alternate song, in Landstad, p. 375, two singers vie one with another in propounding impossible tasks.

A Wendish ballad, Haupt and Schmaler, I, 178, No 151, and a Slovak, Čelakowsky, II, 68, No 12 (the latter translated by Wenzig, Slawische Volkslieder, p. 86, Westslavischer Märchenschatz, p. 221, and Bibliothek Slavischer Poesien, p. 126), have lost nearly all their story, and, like German K, L, may be called mere wit-contests.

The Graidhne whom we have seen winning Fionn for husband by guessing his riddles, p. 3, afterwards became enamored of Diarmaid, Fionn's nephew, in consequence of her accidentally seeing a beauty spot on Diarmaid's forehead. This had the power of infecting with love any woman whose eye should light upon it: wherefore Diarmaid used to wear his cap well down. Graidhne tried to make Diarmaid run away with her. But he said, "I will not go with thee. I will not take thee in softness, and I will not take thee in hardness; I will not take thee without, and I will not take thee within; I will not take thee on horseback, and I will not take thee on foot." Then he went and built himself a house where he thought he should be out of her way. But Graidhne found him out. She took up a position between the two sides of the door, on a buck goat, and called to him to go with her. For, said she, "I am not without, I am not within; I am not on foot, and I am not on a horse; and thou must go with me." After this Diarmaid had no choice. 'Diarmaid and Grainne,' Tales of the West Highlands, III, 39-49; 'How Fingal got Graine to be his wife, and she went away with Diarmaid,' Heroic Gaelic Ballads, p. 153; 'The Death of Diarmaid,' ib., p. 154. The last two were written down c. 1774.

In all stories of the kind, the person upon whom a task is imposed stands acquitted, if another of no less difficulty is devised which must be performed first. This preliminary may be something that is essential for the execution of the other, as in the German ballads, or equally well something that has no kind of relation to the original requisition, as in the English ballads.

An early form of such a story is preserved in Gesta Romanorum, c. 64, Oesterley, p. 374. It were much to be wished that search were made for a better copy, for, as it stands, this tale is to be interpreted only by the English ballad. The old English version, Madden, XLIII, p. 142, is even worse mutilated than the Latin. A king, who was stronger, wiser, and handsomer than any man, delayed, like the Marquis of Saluzzo, to take a wife. His friends urged him to marry, and he replied to their expostulations, "You know I am rich enough and powerful enough; find me a maid who is good looking and sensible, and I will take her to wife, though she be poor." A maid was found who was eminently good looking and sensible, and of royal blood besides. The king wished to make trial of her sagacity, and sent her a bit of linen three inches square, with a promise to marry her if she would make him a shirt of this, of proper length and width. The lady stipulated that the king should send her "a vessel in which she could work," and she would make the shirt: "michi vas concedat in quo operari potero, et camisiam satis longam ei promitto." So the king sent "vas debitum et preciosum," the shirt was made, and the king married her.[14] It may be doubted whether the sagacious maid did not, in the unmutilated story, deal with the problem as is done in a Transylvanian tale, Haltrich, Deutsche Volksmärchen, u.s.w., No 45, p. 245, where the king requires the maid to make a shirt and drawers of two threads. The maid, in this instance, sends the king a couple of broomsticks, requiring that he should first make her a loom and bobbin-wheel out of them.

The tale just cited, 'Der Burghüter und seine kluge Tochter,' is one of several which have been obtained from tradition in this century, that link the ballads of The Clever Lass with oriental stories of great age. The material points are these. A king requires the people of a parish to answer three questions, or he will be the destruction of them all: What is the finest sound, the finest song, the finest stone? A poor warder is instructed by his daughter to reply, the ring of bells, the song of the angels, the philosopher's stone. "Right," says the king, "but that never came out of your head. Confess who told you, or a dungeon is your doom." The man owns that he has a clever daughter, who had told him what to say. The king, to prove her sagacity further, requires her to make a shirt and drawers of two threads, and she responds in the manner just indicated. He next sends her by her father an earthen pot with the bottom out, and tells her to sew in a bottom so that no seam or stitch can be seen. She sends her father back with a request that the king should first turn the pot inside out, for cobblers always sew on the inside, not on the out. The king next demanded that the girl should come to him, neither driving, nor walking, nor riding; neither dressed nor naked; neither out of the road nor in the road; and bring him something that was a gift and no gift. She put two wasps between two plates, stripped, enveloped herself in a fishing net, put her goat into the rut in the road, and, with one foot on the goat's back, the other stepping along the rut, made her way to the king. There she lifted up one of the plates, and the wasps flew away: so she had brought the king a present and yet no present. The king thought he could never find a shrewder woman, and married her.

Of the same tenor are a tale in Zingerle's Tyrolese Kinder u. Hausmärchen, 'Was ist das Schönste, Stärkste und Reichste?' No 27, p. 162, and another in the Colshorns' Hanoverian Märchen u. Sagen, 'Die kluge Dirne,' No 26, p. 79. Here a rich and a poor peasant [a farmer and his bailiff] have a case in court, and wrangle till the magistrate, in his weariness, says he will give them three questions, and whichever answers right shall win. The questions in the former tale are: What is the most beautiful, what the strongest, what the richest thing in the world? In the other, What is fatter than fat? How heavy is the moon? How far is it to heaven? The answers suggested by the poor peasant's daughter are: Spring is the most beautiful of things, the ground the strongest, autumn the richest. And the bailiff's daughter answers: The ground is fatter than fat, for out of it comes all that's fat, and this all goes back again; the moon has four quarters, and four quarters make a pound; heaven is only one day's journey, for we read in the Bible, "Today shalt thou be with me in Paradise." The judge sees that these replies are beyond the wit of the respondents, and they own to having been prompted by a daughter at home. The judge then says that if the girl will come to him neither dressed nor naked, etc., he will marry her; and so the shrewd wench becomes a magistrate's wife.

'Die kluge Bauerntochter,' in the Grimms' K. u. H. märchen, No 94, and 'Die kluge Hirtentochter,' in Pröhle's Märchen für die Jugend, No 49, p. 181, afford another variety of these tales. A peasant, against the advice of his daughter, carries the king a golden mortar, as he had found it, without any pestle. The king shuts him up in prison till he shall produce the pestle [Grimms]. The man does nothing but cry, "Oh, that I had listened to my daughter!" The king sends for him, and, learning what the girl's counsel had been, says he will give her a riddle, and if she can make it out will marry her. She must come to him neither clothed nor naked, neither riding nor driving, etc. The girl wraps herself in a fishing net [Grimms, in bark, Pröhle], satisfies the other stipulations also, and becomes a queen.[15]

Another story of the kind, and very well preserved, is No 25 of Vuk's Volksmärchen der Serben, 'Von dem Mädchen das an Weisheit den Kaiser übertraf,' p. 157. A poor man had a wise daughter. An emperor gave him thirty eggs, and said his daughter must hatch chickens from these, or it would go hard with her. The girl perceived that the eggs had been boiled. She boiled some beans, and told her father to be ploughing along the road, and when the emperor came in sight, to sow them and cry, "God grant my boiled beans may come up!" The emperor, hearing these ejaculations, stopped, and said, "My poor fellow, how can boiled beans grow?" The father answered, according to instructions, "As well as chickens can hatch from boiled eggs." Then the emperor gave the old man a bundle of linen, and bade him make of it, on pain of death, sails and everything else requisite for a ship. The girl gave her father a piece of wood, and sent him back to the emperor with the message that she would perform what he had ordered, if he would first make her a distaff, spindle, and loom out of the wood. The emperor was astonished at the girl's readiness, and gave the old man a glass, with which she was to drain the sea. The girl dispatched her father to the emperor again with a pound of tow, and asked him to stop the mouths of all the rivers that flow into the sea; then she would drain it dry. Hereupon the emperor ordered the girl herself before him, and put her the question, "What is heard furthest?" "Please your Majesty," she answered, "thunder and lies." The emperor then, clutching his beard, turned to his assembled counsellors, and said, "Guess how much my beard is worth." One said so much, another so much. But the girl said, "Nay, the emperor's beard is worth three rains in summer." The emperor took her to wife.

With these traditional tales we may put the story of wise Petronelle and Alphonso, king of Spain, told after a chronicle, with his usual prolixity, by Gower, Confessio Amantis, Pauli, I, 145 ff. The king valued himself highly for his wit, and was envious of a knight who hitherto had answered all his questions. Determined to confound his humbler rival, he devised three which he thought unanswerable, sent for the knight, and gave him a fortnight to consider his replies, which failing, he would lose his goods and head. The knight can make nothing of these questions, which are, What is that which needs help least and gets most? What is worth most and costs least? What costs most and is worth least? The girl, who is but fourteen years old, observing her father's heavy cheer, asks him the reason, and obtains his permission to go to court with him and answer the questions. He was to say to the king that he had deputed her to answer, to make trial of her wits. The answer to the first question is the earth, and agrees in the details with the solution of the query, What is fatter than fat? in the Tyrolese and the Hanoverian tale. Humility is the answer to the second, and pride the third answer. The king admires the young maid, and says he would marry her if her father were noble; but she may ask a boon. She begs for her father an earldom which had lately escheated; and, this granted, she reminds the king of what he had said; her father is now noble. The king marries her.

In all these seven tales a daughter gets her father out of trouble by the exercise of a superior understanding, and marries an emperor, a king, or at least far above her station. The Grimms' story has the feature, not found in the others, that the father had been thrown into prison. Still another variety of these stories, inferior, but preserving essential traits, is given by Schleicher, Litauische Märchen, p. 3, 'Vom schlauen Mädchen.'

A Turkish tale from South Siberia will take us a step further, 'Die beiden Fürsten,' Radloff, Proben der Volkslitteratur der türkischen Stämme Süd-Sibiriens, I, 197. A prince had a feeble-minded son, for whom he wished to get a wife. He found a girl gathering fire-wood with others, and, on asking her questions, had reason to be pleased with her superior discretion. He sent an ox to the girl's father, with a message that on the third day he would pay him a visit, and if by that time he had not made the ox drop a calf and give milk, he would lose his head. The old man and his wife fell to weeping. The daughter bade them be of good cheer, killed the ox, and gave it to her parents to eat. On the third day she stationed herself on the road by which the prince would come, and was gathering herbs. The prince asked what this was for. The girl said, "Because my father is in the pangs of child-birth, and I am going to spread these herbs under him." "Why," said the prince, "it is not the way, that men should bear children." "But if a man can't bear children," answered the girl, "how can an ox have a calf?" The prince was pleased, but said nothing. He went away, and sent his messenger again with three stones in a bag. He would come on the third day, and if the stones were not then made into boots, the old man would lose his head. On the third day the prince came, with all his grandees. The girl was by the roadside, collecting sand in a bag. "What are you going to do with that sand?" asked the prince. "Make thread," said she. "But who ever made thread out of sand?" "And who ever made boots out of stones?" she rejoined. The prince laughed in his sleeve, prepared a great wedding, and married the girl to his son. Soon after, another prince wrote him a letter, saying, "Do not let us be fighting and killing, but let us guess riddles. If you guess all mine, I will be your subject; if you fail, I will take all your having." They were a whole year at the riddles. The other prince "knew three words more," and threw ours into a deep dungeon. From the depths of this dungeon he contrived to send a profoundly enigmatic dispatch to his daughter-in-law, who understood everything, disguised herself as one of his friends, and proposed to the victor to guess riddles again. The clever daughter-in-law "knew seven words more" than he, took her father-in-law out of the dungeon, threw his rival in, and had all the people and property of the vanquished prince for her own.

This Siberian tale links securely those which precede it with a remarkable group of stories, covering by representatives still extant, or which may be shown to have existed, a large part of Asia and of Europe. This group includes, besides a Wallachian and a Magyar tale from recent popular tradition, one Sanskrit form; two Tibetan, derived from Sanskrit; one Mongol, from Tibetan; three Arabic and one Persian, which also had their source in Sanskrit; two Middle-Greek, derived from Arabic, one of which is lost; and two old Russian, from lost Middle-Greek versions.[16]

The gist of these narratives is that one king propounds tasks to another; in the earlier ones, with the intent to discover whether his brother monarch enjoys the aid of such counsellors as will make an attack on him dangerous; in the later, with a demand that he shall acquit himself satisfactorily, or suffer a forfeit: and the king is delivered from a serious strait by the sagacity either of a minister (whom he had ordered to be put to death, but who was still living in prison, or at least seclusion) or of the daughter of his minister, who came to her father's assistance. Which is the prior of these two last inventions it would not be easy to say. These tasks are always such as require ingenuity of one kind or another, whether in devising practical experiments, in contriving subterfuges, in solving riddles, or even in constructing compliments.[17]

One of the Tibetan tales, which, though dating from the beginning of our era, will very easily be recognized in the Siberian tradition of this century, is to this effect. King Rabssaldschal had a rich minister, who desired a suitable wife for his youngest son. A Brahman, his trusty friend, undertook to find one. In the course of his search, which extended through many countries, the Brahman saw one day a company of five hundred maidens, who were making garlands to offer to Buddha. One of these attracted his notice by her behavior, and impressed him favorably by replies to questions which he put.[18] The Brahman made proposals to her father in behalf of the minister's son. These were accepted, and the minister went with a great train to fetch home the bride. On the way back his life was twice saved by taking her advice, and when she was domiciliated, she so surpassed her sisters-in-law in housekeeping talents and virtues that everything was put under her direction. Discord arose between the king of the country she had left and Rabssaldschal, under whom she was now living. The former wished to make trial whether the latter had an able and keen-witted minister or not, and sent him two mares, dam and filly, exactly alike in appearance, with the demand that he should distinguish them. Neither king nor counsellor could discern any difference; but when the minister's daughter heard of their difficulty, she said, "Nothing is easier. Tie the two together and put grass before them; the mother will push the best before the foal." This was done; the king decided accordingly, and the hostile ambassador owned that he was right. Soon after, the foreign prince sent two snakes, of the same size and form, and demanded which was male, which female. The king and his advisers were again in a quandary. The minister resorted to his daughter-in-law. She said, "Lay them both on cotton-wool: the female will lie quiet, the male not; for it is of the feminine nature to love the soft and the comfortable, which the masculine cannot tolerate." They followed these directions; the king gave his verdict, the ambassador acquiesced, the minister received splendid presents. For a final trial the unfriendly king sent a long stick of wood, of equal thickness, with no knots or marks, and asked which was the under and which the upper end. No one could say. The minister referred the question to his daughter. She answered, "Put the stick into water: the root end will sink a little, the upper end float." The experiment was tried; the king said to the ambassador, "This is the upper end, this the root end," to which he assented, and great presents were again given to the minister. The adverse monarch was convinced that his only safe course was peace and conciliation, and sent his ambassador back once more with an offering of precious jewels and of amity for the future. This termination was highly gratifying to Rabssaldschal, who said to his minister, How could you see through all these things? The minister said, It was not I, but my clever daughter-in-law. When the king learned this, he raised the young woman to the rank of his younger sister.

The wise daughter is not found in the Sanskrit tale,[19] which also differs from the Buddhist versions in this: that in the Sanskrit the minister had become an object of displeasure to the king, and in consequence had long been lying in prison when the crisis occurred which rendered him indispensable, a circumstance which is repeated in the tale of The Wise Heykar (Arabian Nights, Breslau transl., XIII, 73 ff, Cabinet des Fées, XXXIX, 266 ff) and in the Life of Æsop. But The Clever Wench reappears in another tale in the same Sanskrit collection (with that express title), and gives her aid to her father, a priest, who has been threatened with banishment by his king if he does not clear up a dark matter within five days. She may also be recognized in Moradbak, in Von der Hagen's 1001 Tag, VIII, 199 ff, and even in the minister's wife in the story of The Wise Heykar.

The tasks of discriminating dam and filly and the root end from the tip end of a stick, which occur both in the Tibetan tales and the Shukasaptati, are found again, with unimportant changes, in the Wallachian popular story, and the Hungarian, which in general resemble the Arabic. Some of those in the Arabian tale and in the Life of Æsop are of the same nature as the wit-trials in the Servian and German popular tales, the story in the Gesta Romanorum, and the German and English ballads. The wise Heykar, e.g., is required to sew together a burst mill-stone. He hands the king a pebble, requesting him first to make an awl, a file, and scissors out of that. The king of Egypt tells Æsop, the king of Babylon's champion sage, that when his mares hear the stallions neigh in Babylon, they cast their foal. Æsop's slaves are told to catch a cat, and are set to scourging it before the Egyptian public. Great offense is given, on account of the sacred character of the animal, and complaint is made to the king, who sends for Æsop in a rage. Æsop says his king has suffered an injury from this cat, for the night before the cat had killed a fine fighting-cock of his. "Fie, Æsop!" says the king of Egypt; "how could the cat go from Egypt to Babylon in one night?" "Why not," replies Æsop, "as well as mares in Egypt hear the stallions neigh in Babylon and cast their foal?"

The tales in the Shukasaptati and in the Dsanglun represent the object of the sending of the tasks to be to ascertain whether the king retains the capable minister through whom he has acquired supremacy. According to the Arabian tale, and those derived from it, tribute is to be paid by the king whose riddles are guessed, or by him who fails to guess. This form of story, though it is a secondary one, is yet by no means late, as is shown by the anecdote in Plutarch, Septem Sapientum Convivium (6), itself probably a fragment of such a story, in which the king of the Æthiops gives a task to Amasis, king of Egypt, with a stake of many towns and cities. This task is the favorite one of draining [drinking] all the water in the sea, which we have had in the Servian tale (it also is in the Life of Æsop), and Bias gives the customary advice for dealing with it.[20]

From the number of these wise virgins should not be excluded the king's daughter in the Gesta Romanorum who guesses rightly among the riddles of the three caskets and marries the emperor's son, though Bassanio has extinguished her just fame: Madden's Old English Versions, p. 238, No 66; Collier, Shakspere's Library, II, 102.

The first three or four stanzas of A-E form the beginning of 'Lady Isabel and the Elf-Knight,' and are especially appropriate to that ballad, but not to this. The two last stanzas of A, B, make no kind of sense here, and these at least, probably the opening verses as well, must belong to some other and lost ballad. An elf setting tasks, or even giving riddles, is unknown, I believe, in Northern tradition, and in no form of this story, except the English, is a preternatural personage of any kind the hero. Still it is better to urge nothing more than that the elf is an intruder in this particular ballad, for riddle-craft is practised by a variety of preternatural beings: notoriously by Odin, Thor, the giant Vafþrúðnir, and the dwarf Alwíss in the Edda, and again by a German "berggeist" (Ey, Harzmärchenbuch, p. 64, 'Die verwünschte Prinzessin'), a Greek dragon (Hahn, Griechisebe u. Albanesische Märchen, II, 210), the Russian rusalka, the Servian vila,[21] the Indian rakshas. For example: a rusalka (water-nymph) pursues a pretty girl, and says, I will give you three riddles: if you guess them, I will let you go home to your father; if you do not, I shall take you with me. What grows without a root? What runs without any object? What blooms without any flower? She answers, Stones grow without a root; water runs without any object; the fern blooms without any flower. These answers seem satisfactory, as riddles go, but the ballad concludes (with an injustice due to corruption?), "The girl did not guess the riddles: the rusalka tickled her to death." (Wojcicki, Pieśni, I, 205.) A rakshas (ogre) says he will spare a man's life if he can answer four questions, and shall devour him if he cannot. What is cruel? What is most to the advantage of a householder? What is love? What best accomplishes difficult things? These questions the man answers, and confirms his answers by tales, and gains the rakshas' good will. (Jacob, Hindoo Tales, or the Adventures of Ten Princes, a translation of the Sanskrit Dasakumaracharitam, p. 260 ff.)

The auld man in J is simply the "unco knicht" of 1 C, D, over again. He has clearly displaced the elf-knight, for the elf's attributes of hill-haunting and magical music remain, only they have been transferred to the lady. That the devil should supplant the knight, unco or familiar, is natural enough. He may come in as the substitute of the elfin knight because the devil is the regular successor to any heathen sprite, or as the embodiment of craft and duplicity, and to give us the pleasure of seeing him outwitted. We find the devil giving riddles, as they are called (tasks), in the Grimms' K. u. H. märchen, No 125 (see also the note in vol. III); Pröhle's K. u. V. märchen, No 19; Vernaleken, Oesterreichische K. u. H. märchen, No 37. He also appears as a riddle-monger in one of the best stories in the Golden Legend. A bishop, who was especially devoted to St Andrew, was tempted by Satan under the semblance of a beautiful woman, and was all but lost, when a loud knocking was heard at the door. A pilgrim demanded admittance. The lady, being asked her pleasure about this, recommended that three questions should be put to the stranger, to show whether he were fit to appear in such presence. Two questions having been answered unexceptionably, the fiend proposed a third, which was meant to be a clincher: How far is it from earth to heaven? "Go back to him that sent you," said the pilgrim (none other than St Andrew) to the messenger, "and say that he himself knows best, for he measured the distance when he fell." Antiquus hostis de medio evanuit. Much the same is related in the legend of St Bartholomew, and, in a Slovenian ballad, of St Ulrich, who interposes to save the Pope from espousing Satan in disguise.[22]

J, K, L, have completely lost sight of the original story.

Translated, after A, C, and D, in Grundtvig's Engelske og skotske Folkeviser, p. 251; R. Warrens, Schottische Lieder der Vorzeit, p. 8; Knortz, Lieder u. Romanzen Alt-Englands, No 54.

A

A broadside in black letter, "printed, I suppose," says Pinkerton, "about 1670," bound up with five other pieces at the end of a copy of Blind Harry's 'Wallace,' Edin. 1673, in the Pepysian Library.

My plaid awa, my plaid awa, And ore the hill and far awa, And far awa to Norrowa, My plaid shall not be blown awa.

1 The elphin knight sits on yon hill, Ba, ba, ba, lilli ba He blaws his horn both lowd and shril. The wind hath blown my plaid awa

2 He blowes it east, he blowes it west, He blowes it where he lyketh best.

3 'I wish that horn were in my kist, Yea, and the knight in my armes two.'

4 She had no sooner these words said, When that the knight came to her bed.

5 'Thou art over young a maid,' quoth he, 'Married with me thou il wouldst be.'

6 'I have a sister younger than I, And she was married yesterday.'

7 'Married with me if thou wouldst be, A courtesie thou must do to me.

8 'For thou must shape a sark to me, Without any cut or heme,' quoth he.

9 'Thou must shape it knife-and-sheerlesse, And also sue it needle-threedlesse.'

10 'If that piece of courtesie I do to thee, Another thou must do to me.

11 'I have an aiker of good ley-land, Which lyeth low by yon sea-strand.

12 'For thou must eare it with thy horn, So thou must sow it with thy corn.

13 'And bigg a cart of stone and lyme, Robin Redbreast he must trail it hame.

14 'Thou must barn it in a mouse-holl, And thrash it into thy shoes soll.

15 'And thou must winnow it in thy looff, And also seck it in thy glove.

16 'For thou must bring it over the sea, And thou must bring it dry home to me.

17 'When thou hast gotten thy turns well done, Then come to me and get thy sark then.'

18 'I'l not quite my plaid for my life; It haps my seven bairns and my wife.' The wind shall not blow my plaid awa

19 'My maidenhead I'l then keep still, Let the elphin knight do what he will.' The wind's not blown my plaid awa

B

A Collection of Curious Old Ballads, etc., p. 3. Partly from an old copy in black letter, and partly from the recitation of an old lady.

My plaid awa, my plaid awa, And owre the hills and far awa, And far awa to Norrowa, My plaid shall not be blawn awa.

1 The Elphin knight sits on yon hill, Ba, ba, ba, lillie ba He blaws his horn baith loud and shrill. The wind hath blawn my plaid awa

2 He blaws it east, he blaws it west, He blaws it where he liketh best.

3 'I wish that horn were in my kist, Yea, and the knight in my arms niest.'

4 She had no sooner these words said, Than the knight came to her bed.

5 'Thou art oer young a maid,' quoth he, 'Married with me that thou wouldst be.'

6 'I have a sister, younger than I, And she was married yesterday.'

7 'Married with me if thou wouldst be, A curtisie thou must do to me.

8 'It's ye maun mak a sark to me, Without any cut or seam,' quoth he.

9 'And ye maun shape it, knife-, sheerless, And also sew it needle-, threedless.'

10 'If that piece of courtisie I do to thee, Another thou must do to me.

11 'I have an aiker of good ley land, Which lyeth low by yon sea strand.

12 'It's ye maun till 't wi your touting horn, And ye maun saw 't wi the pepper corn.

13 'And ye maun harrow 't wi a thorn, And hae your wark done ere the morn.

14 'And ye maun shear it wi your knife, And no lose a stack o 't for your life.

15 'And ye maun stack it in a mouse hole, And ye maun thrash it in your shoe sole.

16 'And ye maun dight it in your loof, And also sack it in your glove.

17 'And thou must bring it over the sea, Fair and clean and dry to me.

18 'And when that ye have done your wark, Come back to me, and ye'll get your sark.'

19 'I'll not quite my plaid for my life; It haps my seven bairns and my wife.'

20 'My maidenhead I'll then keep still, Let the elphin knight do what he will.'

C

Kinloch's A. S. Ballads, p. 145. From the recitation of M. Kinnear, a native of Mearnsshire, 23 Aug., 1826.

1 There stands a knicht at the tap o yon hill, Oure the hills and far awa He has blawn his horn loud and shall. The cauld wind's blawn my plaid awa

2 'If I had the horn that I hear blawn, And the knicht that blaws that horn!'

3 She had na sooner thae words said, Than the elfin knicht cam to her side.

4 'Are na ye oure young a may Wi onie young man doun to lie?'

5 'I have a sister younger than I, And she was married yesterday.'

6 'Married wi me ye sall neer be nane Till ye mak to me a sark but a seam.

7 'And ye maun shape it knife-, sheer-less, And ye maun sew it needle-, threed-less.

8 'And ye maun wash it in yon cistran, Whare water never stood nor ran.

9 'And ye maun dry it on yon hawthorn, Whare the sun neer shon sin man was born.'

10 'Gin that courtesie I do for thee, Ye maun do this for me.

11 'Ye'll get an acre o gude red-land Atween the saut sea and the sand.

12 'I want that land for to be corn, And ye maun aer it wi your horn.

13 'And ye maun saw it without a seed, And ye maun harrow it wi a threed.

14 'And ye maun shear it wi your knife, And na tyne a pickle o't for your life.

15 'And ye maun moue it in yon mouse-hole And ye maun thrash it in your shoe-sole.

16 'And ye maun fan it wi your luves, And ye maun sack it in your gloves.

17 'And ye maun bring it oure the sea, Fair and clean and dry to me.

18 'And whan that your wark is weill deen, Yese get your sark without a seam.'

D

Buchan's Ballads of the North of Scotland, II, 296.

1 The Elfin knight stands on yon hill, Blaw, blaw, blaw winds, blaw Blawing his horn loud and shrill. And the wind has blawin my plaid awa

2 'If I had yon horn in my kist, And the bonny laddie here that I luve best!

3 'I hae a sister eleven years auld, And she to the young men's bed has made bauld.

4 'And I mysell am only nine, And oh! sae fain, luve, as I woud be thine.'

5 'Ye maun make me a fine Holland sark, Without ony stitching or needle wark.

6 'And ye maun wash it in yonder well, Where the dew never wat, nor the rain ever fell.

7 'And ye maun dry it upon a thorn That never budded sin Adam was born.'

8 'Now sin ye've askd some things o me, It's right I ask as mony o thee.

9 'My father he askd me an acre o land, Between the saut sea and the strand.

10 'And ye maun plow 't wi your blawing horn, And ye maun saw 't wi pepper corn.

11 'And ye maun harrow 't wi a single tyne, And ye maun shear 't wi a sheep's shank bane.

12 'And ye maun big it in the sea, And bring the stathle dry to me.

13 'And ye maun barn 't in yon mouse hole, And ye maun thrash 't in your shee sole.

14 'And ye maun sack it in your gluve, And ye maun winno 't in your leuve.

15 'And ye maun dry 't without candle or coal, And grind it without quirn or mill.

16 'Ye'll big a cart o stane and lime, Gar Robin Redbreast trail it syne.

17 'When ye've dune, and finishd your wark, Ye'll come to me, luve, and get your sark.'

E

Motherwell's MS., p. 492.

1 The Elfin Knight sits on yon hill, Ba ba lilly ba Blowing his horn loud and shill. And the wind has blawn my plaid awa

2 'I love to hear that horn blaw; I wish him [here] owns it and a'.'

3 That word it was no sooner spoken, Than Elfin Knight in her arms was gotten.

4 'You must mak to me a sark, Without threed, sheers or needle wark.'

F

Kinloch MSS, I, 75. From Mary Barr.

1 'Did ye ever travel twist Berwick and Lyne? Sober and grave grows merry in time There ye'll meet wi a handsome young dame, Ance she was a true love o mine.

2 'Tell her to sew me a holland sark, And sew it all without needle-wark: And syne we'll be true lovers again.

3 'Tell her to wash it at yon spring-well, Where neer wind blew, nor yet rain fell.

4 'Tell her to dry it on yon hawthorn, That neer sprang up sin Adam was born.

5 'Tell her to iron it wi a hot iron, And plait it a' in ae plait round.'

6 'Did ye ever travel twixt Berwick and Lyne? There ye'll meet wi a handsome young man, Ance he was a true lover o mine.

7 'Tell him to plough me an acre o land Betwixt the sea-side hot and the sea-sand, And syne we'll be true lovers again.

8 'Tell him to saw it wi ae peck o corn, And harrow it a' wi ae harrow tine.

9 'Tell him to shear it wi ae hook-tooth, And carry it hame just into his loof.

10 'Tell him to stack it in yon mouse-hole, And thrash it a' just wi his shoe-sole.

11 'Tell him to dry it on yon ribless kiln, And grind it a' in yon waterless miln.

12 Tell this young man, whan he's finished his wark, He may come to me, and hese get his sark.'

G

Gammer Gurten's Garland, p. 3, ed. 1810.

1 'Can you make me a cambrick shirt, Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme Without any seam or needle work? And you shall be a true lover of mine

2 'Can you wash it in yonder well, Where never sprung water nor rain ever fell?

3 'Can you dry it on yonder thorn, Which never bore blossom since Adam was born?'

4 'Now you have askd me questions three, I hope you'll answer as many for me.

5 'Can you find me an acre of land Between the salt water and the sea sand?

6 'Can you plow it with a ram's horn, And sow it all over with one pepper corn?

7 'Can you reap it with a sickle of leather, And bind it up with a peacock's feather?

8 'When you have done, and finishd your work, Then come to me for your cambrick shirt.'

H

Motherwell's MS., p. 92.

1 'Come, pretty Nelly, and sit thee down by me, Every rose grows merry wi thyme And I will ask thee questions three, And then thou wilt be a true lover of mine.

2 'Thou must buy me a cambrick smock Without any stitch of needlework.

3 'Thou must wash it in yonder strand, Where wood never grew and water neer ran.

4 'Thou must dry it on yonder thorn, Where the sun never shined on since Adam was formed.'

5 'Thou hast asked me questions three; Sit down till I ask as many of thee.

6 'Thou must buy me an acre of land Betwixt the salt water, love, and the sea-sand.

7 'Thou must plow it wi a ram's horn, And sow it all over wi one pile o corn.

8 'Thou must shear it wi a strap o leather, And tie it all up in a peacock feather.

9 'Thou must stack it in the sea, And bring the stale o 't hame dry to me.

10 'When my love's done, and finished his work, Let him come to me for his cambric smock.'

I

Motherwell's MS., p. 103. From the recitation of John McWhinnie, collier, Newtown Green, Ayr.

1 A lady wonned on yonder hill, Hee ba and balou ba And she had musick at her will. And the wind has blown my plaid awa

2 Up and cam an auld, auld man, Wi his blue bonnet in his han.

3 'I will ask ye questions three; Resolve them, or ye'll gang wi me.

4 'Ye maun mak to me a sark, It maun be free o woman's wark.

5 'Ye maun shape it knife-sheerless, And ye maun sew it needle-threedless.

6 'Ye maun wash it in yonder well, Whare rain nor dew has ever fell.

7 'Ye maun dry it on yonder thorn, Where leaf neer grew since man was born.'

8 'I will ask ye questions three; Resolve them, or ye'll neer get me.

9 'I hae a rig o bonnie land Atween the saut sea and the sand.

10 'Ye maun plow it wi ae horse bane, And harrow it wi ae harrow pin.

11 'Ye maun shear 't wi a whang o leather, And ye maun bind 't bot strap or tether.

12 'Ye maun stack it in the sea, And bring the stale hame dry to me.

13 'Ye maun mak a cart o stane, And yoke the wren and bring it hame.

14 'Ye maun thresh't atween your lufes, And ye maun sack't atween your thies.'

15 'My curse on those wha learnëd thee; This night I weend ye'd gane wi me.'

J

Communicated by Rev. F. D. Huntington, Bishop of Western New York, as sung to him by his father in 1828, at Hadley, Mass.; derived from a rough, roystering "character" in the town.

1 Now you are a-going to Cape Ann, Follomingkathellomeday Remember me to the self-same man. Ummatiddle, ummatiddle, ummatallyho, tallyho, follomingkathellomeday

2 Tell him to buy me an acre of land Between the salt-water and the sea-sand.

3 Tell him to plough it with a ram's horn, Tell him to sow it with one peppercorn.

4 Tell him to reap it with a penknife, And tell him to cart it with two mice.

5 Tell him to cart it to yonder new barn That never was built since Adam was born.

6 Tell him to thrash it with a goose quill, Tell him to fan it with an egg-shell.

7 Tell the fool, when he's done his work, To come to me, and he shall have his shirt.

K

Halliwell's Nursery Rhymes of England, 6th ed., p. 109, No 171.

1 My father left me three acres of land, Sing ivy, sing ivy My father left me three acres of land. Sing holly, go whistle and ivy

2 I ploughed it with a ram's horn, And sowed it all over with one pepper corn.

3 I harrowed it with a bramble bush, And reaped it with my little penknife.

4 I got the mice to carry it to the barn, And thrashed it with a goose's quill.

5 I got the cat to carry it to the mill; The miller he swore he would have her paw, And the cat she swore she would scratch his face.

L

Notes and Queries, 1st S., VII, 8. Signed D.

1 My father gave me an acre of land, Sing ivy, sing ivy My father gave me an acre of land. Sing green bush, holly and ivy

2 I ploughd it with a ram's horn.

3 I harrowd it with a bramble.

4 I sowd it with a pepper corn.

5 I reapd it with my penknife.

6 I carried it to the mill upon the cat's back.

* * * * *

7 I made a cake for all the king's men.

A.

The verses here prefaced to the ballad are appended to the last stanza in the broadside. For Norrowa, v. 3, Pinkerton has To-morrow. 9¹, needle and sheerlesse.

B.

'A Proper New Ballad entitled The Wind hath blawn my Plaid awa, or a Discourse between a Young Woman and the Elphin Knight. To be sung with its own proper tune.'

"This ballad is printed partly from an old copy in black letter, and partly from the recitation of an old lady, which appears to be the Scottish version, and is here chiefly adhered to."

D.

3². hae made.

9¹. askd should perhaps be left, or gave, as in K¹, L¹.

E.

Burden², in MS., 1, blown her; 2, 3, blawn her; 4, blawn my.

2¹, blow; 2², and a.

H.

1¹. He speaks, in the margin of MS.

Burden¹, time in margin.

5¹. Maid speaks, in margin.

I.

Not divided regularly into stanzas in the MS.

4². needlewark in margin.

10¹. shin? in margin.

L.

After 6: "Then follows some more which I forget, but I think it ends thus."

FOOTNOTES:

[13] All that was required of the burden, Mr Chappell kindly writes me, was to support the voice by harmonious notes under the melody; it was not sung after each half of the stanza, or after the stanza, and it was heard separately only when the voices singing the air stopped. Even the Danish ballads exhibit but a few cases of these "burden-stems," as Grundwig calls them: see Danmarks Gamle Folkeviser, II, 221, B 1; 295, B 1; 393, A 1: III, 197, D; 470, A. Such burden-stems are, however, very common in Icelandic ballads. They are, for the most part, of a different metre from the ballad, and very often not of the same number of lines as the ballad stanza. A part of the burden stem would seem to be taken for the refrain; as Íslenzk Fornkvæði, I, 30, of four verses, 1, 2, 4; 129, of two, the last half of the first and all the second; 194, of four, the last; 225, of five, the last two; II, 52, of five, the second and last two.

In later times the Danish stev-stamme was made to conform to the metre of the ballad, and sung as the first stanza, the last line perhaps forming the burden. Compare the stev-stamme, Grundwig, III, 470, with the first stanza of the ballad at p. 475. If not so changed, says Grundtvig, it dropped away. Lyngbye, at the end of his Færöiske Qvæder, gives the music of a ballad which he had heard sung. The whole stem is sung first, and then repeated as a burden at the end of every verse. The modern way, judging by Berggreen, Folke-Sange og Melodier, 3d ed., I, 352, 358, is simply to sing the whole stem after each verse, and so says Grundtvig, III, 200, D. The whole stem is appended to the last stanza (where, as usual, the burden, which had been omitted after stanza 1, is again expressed) in the Færöe ballad in Grundtvig, III, 199, exactly as in our broadside, or in Motherwell's Minstrelsy, Appendix, p. iii. I must avow myself to be very much in the dark as to the exact relation of stem and burden.

[14] Grundtvig has noticed the resemblance of G.R. 64 and the ballad.—Much of what follows is derived from the admirable Benfey's papers, 'Die kluge Dirne, Die indischen Märchen von den klugen Räthsellösern, und ihre Verbreitung über Asien und Europa,' Ausland, 1859, p. 457, 486, 511, 567, 589, in Nos 20, 21, 22, 24, 25.

[15] Ragnar Loðbrók (Saga, c. 4, Rafn, Fornaldar Sögur, I, 245), as pointed out by the Grimms, notes to No 94, requires Kraka (Aslaug) to come to him clothed and not clothed, fasting and not fasting, alone and not without a companion. She puts on a fishing net, bites a leek, and takes her dog with her. References for the very frequent occurrence of this feature may be found in Oesterley's note to Gesta Romanorum, No 124, at p. 732.

[16] Benfey, Das Ausland, 1859, p. 459. The versions referred to are: Shukasaptati (Seventy Tales of a Parrot), 47th and 48th night; the Buddhist Kanjur, Vinaya, III, fol. 71-83, and Dsanglun, oder der Weise u. der Thor, also from the Kanjur, translated by I.J. Schmidt, c. 23; the Mongol translation of Dsanglun [see Popow, Mongolische Chrestomathie, p. 19, Schiefner's preface to Radloff, I, xi, xii]; an imperfect Singhalese version in Spence Hardy's Manual of Buddhism, p. 220, 'The History of Wisákhá;' 'Geschichte des weisen Heykar,' 1001 Nacht, Habicht, v. d. Hagen u. Schall, XIII, 71, ed. 1840; 'Histoire de Sinkarib et de ses deux Visirs,' Cabinet des Fées, XXXIX, 266 (Persian); two old Russian translations of Greek tales derived from Arabic, Pypin, 'in the Papers of the Second Division of the Imperial Acad. of Sciences, St Petersburg, 1858, IV, 63-85;' Planudes, Life of Æsop; A. and A. Schott, Walachische Mæhrchen, p. 125, No 9, 'Vom weissen und vom rothen Kaiser;' Erdélyi, Népdalok és Mondák, III, 262, No 8, 'The Little Boy with the Secret and his Little Sword.' To these is to be added, 'L'Histoire de Moradbak,' Caylus, Nouveaux Contes Orientaux, Œuvres Badines, VII, 289 ff, Cabinet des Fées, XXV, 9-406 (from the Turkish?). In the opinion of Benfey, it is in the highest degree likely, though not demonstrable, that the Indian tale antedates our era by several centuries. Ausland, p. 511; see also pp. 487, 459.

[17] Ingenuity is one of the six transcendental virtues of Mahāyāna Buddhism. Schlagintweit, Buddhism in Tíbet, p. 36.

[18] The resemblance to the Siberian tale is here especially striking.

[19] The Shukasaptati, in the form in which we have them, are supposed to date from about the 6th century, and are regarded as abridgments of longer tales. The Vinaya probably took a permanent shape as early as the beginning of the Christian era. As already remarked, there is scarcely a doubt that the Indian story is some centuries older still.

[20] Amasis in return (8) puts some of the questions which we are apt to think of as peculiarly mediæval: What is oldest? What is most beautiful, biggest, wisest, strongest? etc. Two of these we have had in Zingerle's story. They are answered in a commonplace way by the Æthiop, with more refinement by Thales. Seven similar questions were propounded by David to his sons, to determine who was worthiest to succeed him, and answered by Solomon, according to an Arabian writer of the 14th century: Rosenöl, I, 167. Amasis also sent a victim to Bias (2), and asked him to cut out the best and worst of the flesh. Bias cut out the tongue. Here the two anticipate the Anglo-Saxon Salomon and Saturn: "Tell me what is best and worst among men." "I tell thee word is best and worst:" Kemble, p. 188, No 37; Adrian and Ritheus, p. 204, No 43; and Bedæ Collectanea, p. 326. This is made into a very long story in the Life of Æsop, 11. See other examples in Knust, Mittheilungen aus dem Eskurial, p. 326 f, note b, and Nachtrag, p. 647; Oesterley's Kirchhof, v, 94, note to 3, 129; and Landsberger, Die Fabeln des Sophos, cx, ff. We may add that Plutarch's question, Which was first, the bird or the egg? (Quæst. Conviv. l. 2, q. 3), comes up again in The Demaundes Joyous, No 41, Kemble's Salomon and Saturn, p. 290.

[21] Afanasief, Poetic Views of the Slavonians about Nature, I, 25. The poludnitsa seems to belong to the same class: Afanasief, III, 76; Ralston, Songs of the Russian People, p. 147.

[22] The legend of St Andrew in Legenda Aurea, Grässe, cap. II, 9, p. 19 ff; also in the Fornsvenskt Legendarium, I, 143 ff; Zambrini, Leggende Inedite, II, 94 ff; Pitré, Canti pop. Siciliani, II, 232 ff: that of St Bartholomew, Grässe, p. 545, cap. CXXIII, 5, and in a German Passional, Mone's Anzeiger, 1839, VIII, col. 319 f: that of St Ulrich in Achazel and Korytko, I, 76, 'Svéti Ureh,' translated by A. Grün, Volkslieder aus Krain, p. 136 ff. The third question and answer are in all the same. St Serf also has the credit of having baffled the devil by answering occult questions in divinity: Wintown's Scottish Chronicle, I, 131, V, 1238 ff, first pointed out by Motherwell, Minstrelsy, p. lxxiv, who besides cites the legend of St Andrew.

3
THE FAUSE KNIGHT UPON THE ROAD

A. 'The Fause Knight upon the Road,' Motherwell's Minstrelsy, Introduction, p. lxxiv.

B. 'The False Knight,' Motherwell's Minstrelsy, Appendix, Musick, p. xxiv.

This singular ballad is known only through Motherwell. The opening stanza of a second version is given by the editor of the music, Mr. Blaikie, in the Appendix to the Minstrelsy. The idea at the bottom of the piece is that the devil will carry off the wee boy if he can nonplus him. So, in certain humorous stories, a fool wins a princess by dumfounding her: e.g., Halliwell's Popular Rhymes and Nursery-Tales, p. 32; Von der Hagen's Gesammtabenteuer, No 63, iii, 179; Asbjørnsen og Moe, Norske Folkeeventyr, No 4. But here the boy always gets the last word. (See further on, under 'Captain Wedderburn's Courtship.')

An extremely curious Swedish ballad of the same description, from the Lappfiord, Finland, with the substitution of an old crone, possibly a witch, and clearly no better than one of the wicked, for the false knight, is given by Oskar Rancken in Några Prof af Folksång och Saga i det svenska Österbotten, p. 25, No 10. It is a point in both that the replicant is a wee boy (gossen, som liten var).

1 'Why are you driving over my field?' said the carlin: 'Because the way lies over it,' answered the boy, who was a little fellow.

2 'I will cut [hew] your traces,' said etc.: 'Yes, you hew, and I'll build,' answered etc.

3 'I wish you were in the wild wood:' 'Yes, you in, and I outside.'

4 'I wish you were in the highest tree-top:' 'Yes, you up in the top, and I at the roots.'

5 'I wish you were in the wild sea:' 'Yes, you in the sea, and I in a boat.'

6 'I'll bore a hole in your boat:' 'Yes, you bore, and I'll plug.'

7 'I wish you were in hell:' 'Yes, you in, and I outside.'

8 'I wish you were in heaven:' 'Yes, I in, and you outside.'

Chambers, in his Popular Rhymes of Scotland, p. 66 of the new edition, gives, without a word of explanation, a piece, 'Harpkin,' which seems to have been of the same character, but now sounds only like a "flyting."[23] The first stanza would lead us to expect that Harpkin is to be a form of the Elfin Knight of the preceding ballad, but Fin is seen to be the uncanny one of the two by the light of the other ballads. Finn (Fin) is an ancestor of Woden, a dwarf in Völuspá 16 (19), and also a trold (otherwise a giant), who is induced by a saint to build a church: Thiele, Danske Folkesagn, I, 45, Grimm, Mythologie, p. 455. The name is therefore diabolic by many antecedents.

HARPKIN.

1 Harpkin gaed up to the hill, And blew his horn loud and shrill, And by came Fin.

2 'What for stand you there?' quo Fin: 'Spying the weather,' quo Harpkin.

3 'What for had you your staff on your shouther?' quo Fin: 'To haud the cauld frae me,' quo Harpkin.

4 'Little cauld will that haud frae you,' quo Fin: 'As little will it win through me,' quo Harpkin.

5 'I came by your door,' quo Fin: 'It lay in your road,' quo Harpkin.

6 'Your dog barkit at me,' quo Fin: 'It's his use and custom,' quo Harpkin.

7 'I flang a stane at him,' quo Fin: 'I'd rather it had been a bane,' quo Harpkin.

8 'Your wife's lichter,' quo Fin: 'She'll clim the brae the brichter,' quo Harpkin.

9 'Of a braw lad bairn,' quo Fin: 'There'll be the mair men for the king's wars,' quo Harpkin.

10 'There's a strae at your beard,' quo Fin: 'I'd rather it had been a thrave,' quo Harpkin.

11 'The ox is eating at it,' quo Fin: 'If the ox were i the water,' quo Harpkin.

12 'And the water were frozen,' quo Fin: 'And the smith and his fore-hammer at it,' quo Harpkin.

13 'And the smith were dead,' quo Fin: 'And another in his stead,' quo Harpkin.

14 'Giff, gaff,' quo Fin: 'Your mou's fou o draff,' quo Harpkin.

The peit (peat) in st. 3, below, as I am informed by Dr Davidson, is the wee boy's contribution to the school firing.

A.

Motherwell's Minstrelsy, Introduction, p. lxxiv. From Galloway.

1 'O whare are ye gaun?' Quo the fause knicht upon the road: 'I'm gaun to the scule,' Quo the wee boy, and still he stude.

2 'What is that upon your back? ' quo etc. 'Atweel it is my bukes,' quo etc.

3 'What's that ye've got in your arm?' 'Atweel it is my peit.'

4 'Wha's aucht they sheep?' 'They are mine and my mither's.'

5 'How monie o them are mine?' 'A' they that hae blue tails.'

6 'I wiss ye were on yon tree:' 'And a gude ladder under me.'

7 'And the ladder for to break:' 'And you for to fa down.'

8 'I wiss ye were in yon sie:' 'And a gude bottom under me.'

9 'And the bottom for to break:' 'And ye to be drowned.'

B.

Motherwell's Minstrelsy, Appendix, p. xxiv, No xxxii.

'O whare are ye gaun?' quo the false knight, And false, false was his rede:

'I'm gaun to the scule,' says the pretty little boy, And still, still he stude.

FOOTNOTES:

[23] At the last moment I come upon this: "The only safeguard against the malice of witches is 'to flight wi dem,' that is, draw them into a controversy and scold them roundly:" (Mrs Saxby, in an interesting contribution of folk-lore from Unst, Shetland, in The Leisure Hour, for March 27, 1880, p. 199.) This view, which has apparently affected 'Harpkin,' is clearly a modern misunderstanding. Let no one trust to scolding for foiling a witch, unless he "knows more words."

4
LADY ISABEL AND THE ELF-KNIGHT

A. a. 'The Gowans sae gay,' Buchan's Ballads of the North of Scotland, I, 22. b. 'Aye as the Gowans grow gay,' Motherwell's MS., p. 563.

B. 'The Water o Wearie's Well.' a. Buchan's MSS, II, fol. 80. b. Buchan's B. N. S., II, 201. c. Motherwell's MS., p. 561. d. 'Wearie's Wells,' Harris MS., No 19.

C. a. 'May Colven,' Herd's MSS, I, 166. b. 'May Colvin,' Herd's Scottish Songs, 1776, I, 93. c. 'May Colvin, or, False Sir John,' Motherwell's Minstrelsy, p. 67.

D. a. 'May Collin,' Sharpe's Ballad Book, No 17, p. 45. b. 'Fause Sir John and May Colvin,' Buchan, B. N. S., II, 45. c. 'May Collean,' Motherwell's Minstrelsy, Appendix, p. xxi.

E. 'The Outlandish Knight,' Dixon, Ancient Poems, Ballads, etc., p. 74 == Bell, Ancient Poems, Ballads, etc., p. 61.

F. 'The False Knight Outwitted,' Roxburgh Ballads, British Museum, III, 449.

Of all ballads this has perhaps obtained the widest circulation. It is nearly as well known to the southern as to the northern nations of Europe. It has an extraordinary currency in Poland. The Germans, Low and High, and the Scandinavians, preserve it, in a full and evidently ancient form, even in the tradition of this generation. Among the Latin nations it has, indeed, shrunk to very meagre proportions, and though the best English forms are not without ancient and distinctive marks, most of these have been eliminated, and the better ballads are very brief.

A has but thirteen two-line stanzas. An elf-knight, by blowing his horn, inspires Lady Isabel with love-longing. He appears on her first breathing a wish for him, and induces her to ride with him to the greenwood.[24] Arrived at the wood, he bids her alight, for she is come to the place where she is to die. He had slain seven kings' daughters there, and she should be the eighth. She persuades him to sit down, with his head on her knee, lulls him asleep with a charm, binds him with his own sword-belt, and stabs him with his own dagger, saying, If seven kings' daughters you have slain, lie here a husband to them all.

B, in fourteen four-line stanzas, begins unintelligibly with a bird coming out of a bush for water, and a king's daughter sighing, "Wae 's this heart o mine." A personage not characterized, but evidently of the same nature as the elf-knight in A, lulls everybody but this king's daughter asleep with his harp,[25] then mounts her behind him, and rides to a piece of water called Wearie's Well. He makes her wade in up to her chin; then tells her that he has drowned seven kings' daughters here, and she is to be the eighth. She asks him for one kiss before she dies, and, as he bends over to give it, pitches him from his saddle into the water, with the words, Since ye have drowned seven here, I'll make you bridegroom to them all.[26]

C was first published by David Herd, in the second edition of his Scottish Songs, 1776, and afterwards by Motherwell, "collated" with a copy obtained from recitation. D,[27] E, F are all broadside or stall copies, and in broadside style. C, D, E, F have nearly the same story. False Sir John, a knight from the south country [west country, north lands], entices May Colven, C, D [a king's daughter, C 16, E 16; a knight's daughter, Polly, F 4, 9], to ride off with him, employing, in D, a charm which he has stuck in her sleeve. At the knight's suggestion, E, F, she takes a good sum of money with her, D, E, F. They come to a lonely rocky place by the sea [river-side, F], and the knight bids her alight: he has drowned seven ladies here [eight D, six E, F], and she shall be the next. But first she is to strip off her rich clothes, as being too good to rot in the sea. She begs him to avert his eyes, for decency's sake, and, getting behind him, throws him into the water. In F he is absurdly sent for a sickle, to crop the nettles on the river brim, and is pushed in while thus occupied. He cries for help, and makes fair promises, C, E, but the maid rides away, with a bitter jest [on his steed, D, leading his steed, E, F], and reaches her father's house before daybreak. The groom inquires in D about the strange horse, and is told that it is a found one. The parrot asks what she has been doing, and is silenced with a bribe; and when the father demands why he was chatting so early, says he was calling to his mistress to take away the cat. Here C, E, F stop, but D goes on to relate that the maid at once tells her parents what has happened, and that the father rides off at dawn, under her conduct, to find Sir John. They carry off the corpse, which lay on the sands below the rocks, and bury it, for fear of discovery.

There is in Hone's Table Book, III, 130, ed. 1841, a rifacimento by Dixon of the common English broadside in what passes for old-ballad style. This has been repeated in Richardson's Borderer's Table Book, VI, 367; in Dixon's Scottish Traditional Versions of Ancient Ballads, p. 101; and, with alterations, additions, and omissions, in Sheldon's Minstrelsy of the English Border, p. 194.

Jamieson (1814) had never met with this ballad in Scotland, at least in anything like a perfect state; but he says that a tale to the same effect, intermixed with scraps of verse, was familiar to him when a boy, and that he afterwards found it, "in much the same state, in the Highlands, in Lochaber and Ardnamurchan." According to the tradition reported by Jamieson, the murderer had seduced the younger sister of his wife, and was seeking to prevent discovery, a difference in the story which might lead us to doubt the accuracy of Jamieson's recollection. (Illustrations of Northern Antiquities, p. 348.)

Stories like that of this ballad will inevitably be attached, and perhaps more or less adapted, to localities where they become known. May Collean, says Chambers, Scottish Ballads, p. 232, note, "finds locality in that wild portion of the coast of Carrick (Ayrshire) which intervenes betwixt Girvan and Ballantrae. Carlton Castle, about two miles to the south of Girvan (a tall old ruin, situated on the brink of a bank which overhangs the sea, and which gives title to Sir John Cathcart, Bart, of Carlton), is affirmed by the country people, who still remember the story with great freshness, to have been the residence of 'the fause Sir John;' while a tall rocky eminence called Gamesloup, overhanging the sea about two miles still further south, and over which the road passes in a style terrible to all travellers, is pointed out as the place where he was in the habit of drowning his wives, and where he was finally drowned himself. The people, who look upon the ballad as a regular and proper record of an unquestionable fact, farther affirm that May Collean was a daughter of the family of Kennedy of Colzean," etc. Binyan's (Bunion) Bay, in D, is, according to Buchan, the old name of the mouth of the river Ugie.

Far better preserved than the English, and marked with very ancient and impressive traits, is the Dutch ballad 'Halewijn,' which, not many years ago, was extensively sung in Brabant and Flanders, and is still popular as a broadside, both oral tradition and printed copies exhibiting manifold variations. A version of this ballad (A) was communicated by Willems to Mone's Anzeiger in 1836, col. 448 ff, thirty-eight two-line stanzas, and afterwards appeared in Willems's Oude vlaemsche Liederen (1848), No 49, p. 116, with some changes in the text and some various readings. Uhland, I, 153, 74 D, gave the Anzeiger text, with one correction. So Hoffmann, Niederländische Volkslieder, 2d ed., No 9, p. 39, but substituting for stanzas 19, 20 four stanzas from the margin of O.v.L., and making other slighter changes. Baecker, Chants historiques de la Flandre, No 9, p. 61, repeats Willems's second text, with one careless omission and one transposition. Coussemaker, Chants populaires des Flamands de France, No 45, p. 142, professes to give the text of Oude vlaemsche Liederen, and does so nearly. Snellaert, Oude en nieuwe Liedjes, 3d ed., 1864, No 55, p. 58, inserts seven stanzas in the place of 33, 34 of O.v.L., and two after 35, making forty-five two- (or three-) line stanzas instead of thirty-eight. These additions are also found in an excessively corrupt form of the ballad (B), Hoffmann, No 10, p. 43, in which the stanzas have been uniformly extended to three verses, to suit the air, which required the repetition of the second line of the original stanza.

Heer Halewijn (A), like the English elf-knight, sang such a song that those who heard it longed to be with him. A king's daughter asked her father if she might go to Halewijn. No, he said; those who go that way never come back [sixteen have lost their lives, B]. So said mother and sister, but her brother's answer was, I care not where you go, so long as you keep your honor. She dressed herself splendidly, took the best horse from her father's stable, and rode to the wood, where she found Halewijn waiting for her.[28] They then rode on further, till they came to a gallows, on which many women were hanging. Halewijn says, Since you are the fairest maid, choose your death [B 20 offers the choice between hanging and the sword]. She calmly chooses the sword. "Only take off your coat first, for a maid's blood spirts a great way, and it would be a pity to spatter you." His head was off before his coat, but the tongue still spake. This dialogue ensues:

'Go yonder into the corn, And blow upon my horn, That all my friends you may warn.'

'Into the corn I will not go, And on your horn I will not blow: A murderer's bidding I will not do.'

'Go yonder under the gallows-tree, And fetch a pot of salve for me, And rub my red neck lustily.'

'Under the gallows I will not go, Nor will I rub your red neck, no, A murderer's bidding I will not do.'

She takes the head by the hair and washes it in a spring, and rides back through the wood. Half-way through she meets Halewijn's mother, who asks after her son; and she tells her that he is gone hunting, that he will never be seen again, that he is dead, and she has his head in her lap. When she came to her father's gate, she blew the horn like any man.

And when the father heard the strain, He was glad she had come back again.

Thereupon they held a feast, The head was on the table placed.

Snellaert's copy and the modern three-line ballad have a meeting with father, brother, sister, and mother successively. The maid's answer to each of the first three is that Halewijn is amusing himself with sixteen maids, or to that effect, but to the mother that he is dead, and she has his head in her lap. The mother angrily replies, in B, that if she had given this information earlier she would not have got so far on her way home. The maid retorts, Wicked woman, you are lucky not to have been served as your son; then rides, "like Judith wise," straight to her father's palace, where she blows the horn blithely, and is received with honor and love by the whole court.[29]

Another Flemish version (C) has been lately published under the title, 'Roland,' by which only, we are informed, is this particular form known in Bruges and many parts of Flanders:[30] Chants populaires recueillis à Bruges par Adolphe Lootens et J. M. E. Feys, No 37, p. 60, 183 vv, in sixty-three stanzas, of two, three, four, or five lines. This text dates from the last century, and is given with the most exact fidelity to tradition. It agrees with A as to some main points, but differs not a little as to others. The story sets out thus:

It was a bold Roland, He loved a lass from England; He wist not how to get her, With reading or with writing, With brawling or with fighting.

Roland has lost Halewyn's art of singing. Louise asks her father if she may go to Roland, to the fair, as all her friends do. Her father refuses: Roland is "een stoute kalant," a bad fellow that betrays pretty maids; he stands with a drawn sword in his hand, and all his soldiers in armor. The daughter says she has seen Roland more than once, and that the tale about the drawn sword and soldiers is not true. This scene is exactly repeated with mother and brother. Louise then tries her shrift-father. He is easier, and does not care where she goes, provided she keeps her honor and does not shame her parents. She tells father, mother, and brother that she has leave from her confessor, makes her toilet as in A, takes the finest horse in the stable, and rides to the wood. There she successively meets Roland's father, mother, and brother, each of whom asks her where she is going, and whether she has any right to the crown she wears. To all she replies, Whether I have or not, be off; I know you not. She does not encounter Roland in the wood, they do not ride together, and there is no gallows-field. She enters Roland's house, where he is lying abed. He bids her gather three rose-wreaths "at his hands" and three at his feet; but when she approaches the foot of the bed he rises, and offers her the choice to lose her honor or kneel before the sword. She chooses the sword, advises him to spare his coat, and, while he is taking it off, strikes off his head, all as in A. The head speaks: Go under the gallows (of which we have heard nothing hitherto), fetch a pot of salve, rub it on my wounds, and they shall straight be well. She declines to follow a murderer's rede, or to learn magic. The head bids her go under the blue stone and fetch a pot of maidens-grease, which also will heal the wounds. This again she refuses to do, in the same terms; then seizes the head by the hair, washes it in a spring, and rides off with it through the wood, duly meeting Roland's father, mother, and brother once more, all of whom challenge her, and to all of whom she answers,

Roland your son is long ago dead; God has his soul and I his head; For in my lap here I have his head, And with the blood my apron is red.

When she came back to the city the drums and the trumpets struck up.[31] She stuck the head out of the window, and cried, "Now I am Roland's bride!" She drew it in, and cried, "Now I am a heroine!"

Danish. Eleven versions of this ballad are known in Danish, seven of which are given in Danmarks gamle Folkeviser, No 183, 'Kvindemorderen,' A-G. Four more, H-L, are furnished by Kristensen, Jydske Folkeviser, I, Nos 46, 47, 91; II, No 85. A, in forty-one two-line stanzas (previously printed in Grundtvig's Engelske og skotske Folkeviser, p. 233), is from a 16th century MS.; B, thirty stanzas, C, twenty-four, D, thirty-seven, from MSS of the 17th century; E, fifty-seven, from a broadside of the end of the 18th; F, thirty, from one of the beginning of the 19th; and G-L, thirty-five, twenty-three, thirty-one, twenty-six, thirty-eight stanzas, from recent oral tradition.

The four older versions, and also E, open with some lines that occur at the beginning of other ballads.[32] In A and E, and, we may add, G, the maid is allured by the promise of being taken to a paradise exempt from death and sorrow; C, D, F promise a train of handmaids and splendid presents. All the versions agree very well as to the kernel of the story. A false knight prevails upon a lady to elope with him, and they ride to a wood [they simply meet in a wood, H, K]. He sets to work digging a grave, which she says is too long for his [her] dog and too narrow for his [her] horse [all but F, H]. She is told that the grave is for her. He has taken away the life [and honor, B, C, I] of eight maids, and she shall be the ninth. The eight maids become nine kings' daughters in E, ten in F, nineteen in G, and in E and F the hard choice is offered of death by sword, tree, or stream. In A, E, I, L the knight bids the lady get her gold together before she sets out with him, and in D, H, K, L he points out a little knoll under which he keeps the gold of his previous victims. The maid now induces the knight to lie down with his head in her lap, professing a fond desire to render him the most homely of services[33] [not in C, G, I, K]. He makes an express condition in E, F, G, H, L that she shall not betray him in his sleep, and she calls Heaven to witness that she will not. In G she sings him to sleep. He slept a sleep that was not sweet. She binds him hand and foot, then cries, Wake up! I will not betray you in sleep.[34] Eight you have killed; yourself shall be the ninth. Entreaties and fair promises and pretences that he had been in jest, and desire for shrift, are in vain. Woman-fashion she drew his sword, but man-fashion she cut him down. She went home a maid.

E, F, G, however, do not end so simply. On her way home through the wood [E], she comes upon a maid who is working gold, and who says, The last time I saw that horse my brother rode it. She answers, Your brother is dead, and will do no more murdering for gold; then turns her horse, and sets the sister's bower on fire. Next she encounters seven robbers on the heath, who recognize the horse as their master's, and are informed of his death and of the end of his crimes. They ask about the fire. She says it is an old pig-sty. She rides on, and they call to her that she is losing her horse's gold shoe. But nothing can stop her; she bids them pick it up and drink it in wine; and so comes home to her father's. F has nothing of the sister; in place of seven robbers there are nine of the robber's brothers, and the maid sets their house on fire. G indulges in absurd extravagances: the heroine meets the robber's sister with twelve fierce dogs, and then his twelve swains, and cuts down both dogs and swains.

The names in the Danish ballads are, A, Ulver and Vænelil; B, Olmor, or Oldemor, and Vindelraad; C, Hollemen and Vendelraad; D, Romor, Reimord, or Reimvord, and the maid unnamed; F, Herr Peder and Liden Kirsten; H-L, Ribold, Rigbold [I, Rimmelil] and Guldborg.

Four Swedish versions are known, all from tradition of this century. A, 'Den Falske Riddaren,' twenty-three two-line stanzas, Arwidsson, 44 B, I, 301. B, 'Röfvaren Brun,' fifteen stanzas, Afzelius, 83, III, 97. C, twenty-seven stanzas, Arwidsson, 44 A, I, 298. D, 'Röfvaren Rymer,' sixteen stanzas, Afzelius, 82, III, 94. A, B, D have resemblances, at the beginning, to the Ribold ballads, like the Danish A, B, E, G, while the beginning of C is like the Danish C, D, F. A has the grave-digging; there have been eight maids before; the knight lays his head in the lady's lap for the same reason as in most of the Danish ballads, and under the same assurance that he shall not be betrayed in sleep; he is bound, and conscientiously waked before his head is struck off; and the lady rides home to her father's. There have been eight previous victims in C, and they king's daughters; in B, eleven (maids); D says not how many, but, according to an explanation of the woman that sang it, there were seven princesses. C, D, like Danish E, F, G, make the maid encounter some of the robber's family on the way home. By a misconception, as we perceive by the Dutch ballad, she is represented as blowing the robber's horn. Seven sisters come at the familiar sound to bury the murdered girl and share the booty, but find that they have their brother to bury.

The woman has no name in any of the Swedish ballads. A calls the robber "an outlandish man" (en man ifrån fremmande land), B, simple Brun, C, a knight, and D, Riddaren Rymer, or Herr Rymer.

Of Norwegian versions, but two have been printed: A, 'Svein Norðmann,' twenty two-line stanzas, Landstad, 69, p. 567; B, 'Rullemann og Hildeborg,' thirty stanzas, Landstad, 70, p. 571, both from recent recitation. Bugge has communicated eight others to Grundtvig. Both A and B have the paradise at the beginning, which is found in Danish A, E, G, and Swedish D. In both the lady gets her gold together while the swain is saddling his horse. They come to a grave already dug, which in B is said to be made so very wide because Rulleman has already laid nine maidens in it. The stanza in A which should give the number is lost, but the reciter or singer put it at seven or nine. The maid gets the robber into her power by the usual artifice, with a slight variation in B. According to A, she rides straight home to her father. B, like Danish F, has an encounter with her false lover's [five] brothers. They ask, Where is Rullemann, thy truelove? She answers, He is lying down, in the green mead, and bloody is his bridal bed.

Of the unprinted versions obtained by Professor Bugge, two indicate that the murderer's sleep was induced by a spell, as in English A. F 9 has,

Long time stood Gullbjör; to herself she thought, May none of my runes avail me ought?

And H 18, as also a variant to B 20, says it was a rune-slumber that came over him. Only G, H, I, K give the number of the murdered women: in G, H, eight, in I, nine, in K, five.

The names are, in A, Svein Norðmann and Guðbjörg; B, Rulleman and Hildeborg [or Signe]; C, D, E, F, Svein Nórmann and Gullbjör [Gunnbjör]; G, Rullemann and Kjersti; H, Rullball and Signelill; I, Alemarken and Valerós; K, Rulemann and a fair maid.

Such information as has transpired concerning Icelandic versions of this ballad is furnished by Grundtvig, IV, 4. The Icelandic form, though curtailed and much injured, has shown tenacity enough to preserve itself in a series of closely agreeing copies from the 17th century down. The eldest, from a manuscript of 1665, runs thus:

1 Ása went along the street, she heard a sweet sound.

2 Ása went into the house, she saw the villain bound.

3 'Little Ása, loose me! I will not beguile thee.'

4 'I dare not loose thee, I know not whether thou'lt beguile me.'

5 'God almighty take note who deceives the other!'

6 She loosed the bands from his hand, the fetter from his foot.

7 'Nine lands have I visited, ten women I've beguiled;

8 'Thou art now the eleventh, I'll not let thee slip.'

A copy, from the beginning of the 18th century, has, in stanza 2, "Ása went into the wood," a recent copy, "over the fields;" and stanza 3, in the former, with but slight differences in all the modern copies, reads,

'Welcome art thou, Ása maid! thou wilt mean to loose me.'

Some recent copies (there is one in Berggreen, Danske Folkesange, 2d ed., I, 162) allow the maid to escape, adding,

9 'Wait for me a little space, whilst I go into the green wood.'

10 He waited for her a long time, but she never came back to him.

11 Ása took her white steed, of all women she rode most.

12 Ása went into a holy cell, never did she harm to man.

This is certainly one of the most important of the German ballads, and additions are constantly making to a large number of known versions. Excepting two broadsides of about 1560, and two copies from recitation printed in 1778, all these, twenty-six in number, have been obtained from tradition since 1800.[35] They are as follows: A a, 'Gert Olbert,' 'Die Mörners Sang,' in Low German, as written down by William Grimm, in the early years of this century, 61 vv, Reifferscheid, p. 161, II. A b, "from the Münster region," communicated to Uhland by the Baroness Annette von Droste-Hüllshof, 46 vv, Uhland, I, 151, No 74 C; repeated in Mittler, No 79. A c, a fragment from the same source as the preceding, and written down at the beginning of this century, 35 vv, Reifferscheid, p. 161, I. B, 'Es wollt sich ein Markgraf ausreiten,' from Bökendorf, Westphalia, as taken down by W. Grimm, in 1813, 41 vv, Reifferscheid, p. 116. C a, 'Die Gerettete,' "from the Lower Rhine," twenty-six two-line stanzas, Zuccalmaglio, No 28, p. 66; Mittler, No 85. C b, eleven two-line stanzas, Montanus (== Zuccalmaglio) Die deutschen Volksfeste, p. 45. D, 'Von einem wackern Mägdlein, Odilia geheissen,' etc., from the Rhine, 34 vv [Longard], No 24, p. 48. E, 'Schondilie,' Menzenberg and Breitbach, 59 vv, Simrock, No 7, p. 19; Mittler, No 86. F, 'Jungfrau Linnich,' communicated by Zuccalmaglio as from the Rhine region, Berg and Mark, fourteen two-line stanzas, Erlach, IV, 598, and Kretzschmer (nearly), No 92, p. 164; Mittler, No 87. G a, 'Ulinger,' 120 vv, Nuremberg broadside "of about 1555" (Böhme) in Wunderhorn, ed. 1857, IV, 101, Böhme, No 13^a, p. 56. G b c, Basel broadsides, "of about 1570" (Böhme), and of 1605, in Uhland, No 74 A, I, 141; Mittler, No 77. H, 'Adelger,' 120 vv, an Augsburg broadside, "of about 1560" (Böhme), Uhland, No 74 B, I, 146; Böhme, No 13^b, p. 58; Mittler, No 76. I, 'Der Brautmörder,' in the dialect of the Kuhländchen (Northeast Moravia and Austrian Silesia), 87 vv, Meinert, p. 61; Mittler, No 80. J, 'Annele,' Swabian, from Hirrlingen and Obernau, 80 vv, Meier, Schwäbische V. L., No 168, p. 298. K, another Swabian version, from Hirrlingen, Immenried, and many other localities, 80 vv, Scherer, Jungbrunnen, No 5 B, p. 25. L a, from the Swabian-Würtemberg border, 81 VV, Birlinger, Schwäbisch-Augsburgisches Wörterbuch, p. 458. L b, [Birlinger], Schwäbische V. L., p. 159, from Immenried, nearly word for word the same. M, 'Der falsche Sänger,' 40 vv, Meier, No 167, p. 296. N, 'Es reitets ein Ritter durch Haber und Klee,' 43 vv, a fifth Swabian version, from Hirrlingen, Meier, p. 302. O, 'Alte Ballade die in Entlebuch noch gesungen wird,' twenty-three double stanzas, in the local dialect, Schweizerblätter von Henne und Reithard, 1833, II^r Jahrgang, 210-12. P, 'Das Guggibader-Lied,' twenty-one treble stanzas (23?), in the Aargau dialect, Rochholz, Schweizersagen aus dem Aargau, I 24. Q, 'Es sitzt gut Ritter auf und ritt,' a copy taken down in 1815 by J. Grimm, from the recitation of a lady who had heard it as a child in German Bohemia, 74 vv, Reifferscheid, p. 162. R, 'Bie wrüe işt auv der ritterşmàn, 'in the dialect of Gottschee, Carniola, 86 vv, Schröer, Sitzungsberichte der Wiener Ak., phil-hist. Cl, LX, 462. S, 'Das Lied von dem falschen Rittersmann,' 60 vv, from Styria, Rosegger and Heuberger, Volkslieder aus Steiermark, No 19, p. 17. T, 'Ulrich und Ännchen,'[36] 49 vv, Herder's Volkslieder, 1778, I, 79; Mittler, No 78. U, 'Schön Ulrich und Roth-Aennchen,' 46 vv, in Taschenbuch für Dichter und Dichterfreunde, Abth. viii, 126, 1778, from Upper Lusatia (slightly altered by the contributor, Meissner); Mittler, No 84. A copy from Kapsdorf, in Hoffmann and Richter's Schlesische V. L., No 13, p. 27, is the same, differing by only three words. V, 'Schön-Aennelein,' 54 vv, from the eastern part of Brandenburg, Erk u. Irmer, 6th Heft, p. 64, No 56 (stanzas 4-8 from the preceding). W, 'Schön Ullerich und Hanselein,' twenty-nine two-line stanzas, from the neighborhood of Breslau, in Gräter's Idunna und Hermode, No 35, Aug. 29, 1812, following p. 140. The same in Schlesische V. L., No 12, p. 23, 'Schön Ulrich u. Rautendelein,' with a stanza (12) inserted; and Mittler, No 81. X, 'Der Albrecht u. der Hanselein,' 42 vv, from Natangen, East Prussia, in Neue preussische Provinzial-Blätter, 2d series, III, 158, No 8. Y, 'Ulrich u. Annle,' nineteen two-line stanzas, a second Kuhländchen version, Meinert, p. 66; Mittler, No 83. Z a, 'Von einem frechen Räuber, Herr Ulrich geheissen,' nineteen two-line stanzas, from the Rhine [Longard], No 23, p. 46. Z b, 'Ulrich,' as sung on the Lower Rhine, the same ballad, with unimportant verbal differences, and the insertion of one stanza (7, the editor's?), Zuccalmaglio, No 15, p. 39; Mittler, No 82.

The German ballads, as Grundtvig has pointed out, divide into three well-marked classes. The first class, embracing the versions A-F (6), and coming nearest to English and Dutch tradition, has been found along the lower half of the Rhine and in Westphalia, or in Northwest Germany; the second, including G-S (13), is met with in Swabia, Switzerland, Bohemia, Moravia, Styria, Carniola, or in South Germany; the third, T-Z (7), in East Prussia, the eastern part of Brandenburg and of Saxony, Silesia, and, again, Moravia, or, roughly speaking, in North and East Germany; but, besides the Moravian, there is also of this third class one version, in two copies, from the Rhine.

(I.) A runs thus. She that would ride out with Gert Olbert must dress in silk and gold. When fair Helena had so attired herself, she called from her window, Gert Olbert, come and fetch the bride. He took her by her silken gown and swung her on behind him, and they rode three days and nights. Helena then said, We must eat and drink; but Gert Olbert said, We must go on further. They rode over the green heath, and Helena once more tenderly asked for refreshment. Under yon fir [linden], said Gert Olbert, and kept on till they came to a green spot, where nine maids were hanging. Then it was, Wilt thou choose the fir-tree, the running stream, or the naked sword? She chose the sword, but begged him to take off his silken coat, "for a maid's blood spirts far, and I should be sorry to spatter it." While he was engaged in drawing off his coat, she cut off his head. But still the false tongue spoke. It bade her blow in his horn; then she would have company enough. She was not so simple as to do this. She rode three days and nights, and blew the horn when she reached her father's castle. Then all the murderers came running, like hounds after a hare. Frau Clara [Jutte] called out, Where is my son? Under the fir-tree, sporting with nine maids; he meant me to be the tenth, said Helena.

B is the same story told of a margrave and Fair Annie, but some important early stanzas are lost, and the final ones have suffered injury; for the ballad ends with this conceit, "She put the horn to her mouth, and blew the margrave quite out of her heart." Here, by a transference exceedingly common in tradition, it is the man, and not the maid, that "would ride in velvet and silk and red gold."

C a has the names Odilia and Hilsinger, a trooper (reiter). Odilia was early left an orphan, and as she grew up "she grew into the trooper's bosom." He offered her seven pounds of gold to be his, and "she thought seven pounds of gold a good thing." We now fall into the track of A. Odilia dresses herself like a bride, and calls to the trooper to come and get her. They ride first to a high hill, where she asks to eat and drink, and then go on to a linden-tree, on which seven maids are hanging. The choice of three deaths is offered, the sword chosen, he is entreated to spare his coat, she seizes his sword and hews off his head. The false tongue suggests blowing the horn. Odilia thinks "much biding or blowing is not good." She rides away, and presently meets the trooper's "little foot-page" (bot), who fancies she has Hilsinger's horse and sword. "He sleeps," she says, "with seven maids, and thought I was to be the eighth." This copy concludes with a manifestly spurious stanza. C b agrees with C a for ten stanzas, as to the matter, and so far seems to be C a improved by Zuccalmaglio, with such substitutions as a princely castle for "seven pounds of gold." The last stanza (11),

Und als die Sternlein am Himmel klar, Ottilia die achte der Todten war,

was, no doubt, suggested by the last of F, another of Zuccalmaglio's versions, and, if genuine, would belong to a ballad of the third class.

D has the name Odilia for the maid, but the knight, or trooper, has become expressly a robber (ritter, reiter, räuber). They ride to a green heath, where there is a cool spring. Odilia asks for and gets a draught of water, and is told that at the linden-tree there will be eating and drinking for them. And when they come to the linden, there hang six, seven maids! All proceeds as before. The talking head is lost. Odilia meets the robber's mother, and makes the usual reply.[37]

E resembles C closely. Odilia becomes Schondilg (Schön Odilie), Räuber returns to Ritter, or Reiter, and the servant-maid bribe of seven pounds of gold rises to ten tons.[38] Schondilg's toilet, preparatory to going off (6-8), is described with a minuteness that we find only in the Dutch ballad (12-16). After this, there is no important variation. She meets the trooper's three brothers, and makes the same replies to them as to the mother in D.

F. The personages here are Linnich (i.e., Nellie) and a knight from England. The first twelve stanzas do not diverge from C, D, E. In stanza 13 we find the knight directing the lady to strip off her silk gown and gold necklace, as in the English C, D, E; but certainly this inversion of the procedure which obtains in German C, D, E is an accident arising from confused recollection. The 14th and last stanza similarly misunderstands the maid's feigned anxiety about the knight's fine coat, and brings the ballad to a false close, resembling the termination of those of the third class, still more those of certain mixed forms to be spoken of presently.

(II.) The second series, G-S, has three or four traits that are not found in the foregoing ballads. G, which, as well as H, was in print more than two hundred years before any other copy is known to have been taken down, begins, like the Dutch Halewijn, with a knight (Ulinger) singing so sweetly that a maid (Fridburg) is filled with desire to go off with him. He promises to teach her his art. This magical song is wanting only in R, of class II, and the promise to teach it only in Q, R. She attires herself splendidly; he swings her on to his horse behind him, and they ride to a wood. When they came to the wood there was no one there but a white dove on a hazel-bush, that sang, Listen, Fridburg: Ulinger has hanged eleven[39] maids; the twelfth is in his clutches. Fridburg asked what the dove was saying. Ulinger replied, It takes me for another; it lies in its red bill; and rode on till it suited him to alight. He spread his cloak on the grass, and asked her to sit down:

Er sprach sie solt ihm lausen, Sein gelbes Haar zerzausen.[40]

Looking up into her eyes, he saw tears, and asked why she was weeping. Was it for her sorry husband? Not for her sorry husband, she said. But here some stanzas, which belong to another ballad,[41] have crept in, and she is, with no reason, made to ride further on. She comes to a lofty fir, and eleven maids hanging on it. She wrings her hands and tears her hair, and implores Ulinger to let her be hanged in her clothes as she is.

'Ask me not that, Fridburg,' he said; 'Ask me not that, thou good young maid; Thy scarlet mantle and kirtle black Will well become my young sister's back.'

Then she begs to be allowed three cries.

'So much I may allow thee well, Thou art so deep within the dell; So deep within the dell we lie, No man can ever hear thy cry.'

She cries, "Help, Jesu!" "Help, Mary!" "Help, dear brother!"

'For if thou come not straight, For my life 't will be too late!'

Her brother seems to hear his sister's voice "in every sense."

He let his falcon fly, Rode off with hounds in full cry; With all the haste he could He sped to the dusky wood.

'What dost thou here, my Ulinger? What dost thou here, my master dear?' 'Twisting a withe, and that is all, To make a halter for my foal.'

'Twisting a withe, and that is all, To make a halter for thy foal! I swear by my troth thus shall it be, Thyself shalt be the foal for me.'

'Then this I beg, my Fridburger, Then this I beg, my master dear, That thou wilt let me hang In my clothes as now I stand.'

'Ask me not that, thou Ulinger, Ask me not that, false perjurer; Thy scarlet mantle and jerkin black Will well become my scullion's back.'

His shield before his breast he slung, Behind him his fair sister swung, And so he hied away Where his father's kingdom lay.

H, the nearly contemporaneous Augsburg broadside, differs from G in only one important particular. The "reuter" is Adelger, the lady unnamed. A stanza is lost between 6 and 7, which should contain the warning of the dove, and so is Adelger's version of what the bird had said. The important feature in H, not present in G, is that the halt is made near a spring, about which blood is streaming, "der war mit blut umbrunnenn." This adds a horror to this powerful scene which well suits with it. When the maid begins to weep, Adelger asks whether her tears are for her father's land, or because she dislikes him so much. It is for neither reason, but because on yon fir she sees eleven maids hanging. He confirms her fears:

'Ah, thou fair young lady fine, O palsgravine, O empress mine, Adelger 's killed his eleven before, Thou 'lt be the twelfth, of that be sure.'[42]

The last two lines seem, by their form, to be the dove's warning that has dropped out between stanzas 6 and 7. The maid's clothes in H are destined to be the perquisite of Adelger's mother, and the brother says that Adelger's are to go to his shield-bearer. The unhappy maid cries but twice, to the Virgin and to her brother. When surprised by the brother, Adelger feigns to be twisting a withe for his falcon.

I begins, like G, H, with the knight's seductive song. Instead of the dove directly warning the maid, it upbraids the man: "Whither now, thou Ollegehr?[43] Eight hast thou murdered already; and now for the ninth!" The maid asks what the dove means, and is told to ride on, and not mind the dove, who takes him for another man. There are eight maids in the fir. The cries are to Jesus, Mary, and her brothers, one of whom hastens to the rescue. He is struck with the beauty of his sister's attire,—her velvet dress, her virginal crown, "which you shall wear many a year yet." So saying, he draws his sword, and whips off his "brother-in-law's" head, with this epicedium:

'Lie there, thou head, and bleed, Thou never didst good deed.

'Lie there, thou head, and rot, No man shall mourn thy lot.

'No one shall ever be sorry for thee But the small birds on the greenwood tree.'[44]

In J, again, the knight comes riding through the reeds, and sings such a song that Brown Annele, lying under the casement, exclaims, "Could I but sing like him, I would give my troth and my honor!" There are, by mistake, two[45] doves in stanza 4, that warn Annele not to be beguiled, but this error is set right in the next stanza. When she asks what the dove is cooing, the answer is, "It is cooing about its red foot; it went barefoot all winter." We have here again, as in H, the spring in the wood, "mit Blute umrunnen," and the lady asks again the meaning of the bloody spring. The knight replies, in a stanza which seems both corrupted and out of place, "This is where the eleven pure virgins perished." Then follow the same incidents as in G-I. He says she must hang with the eleven in the fir, and be queen over all. Her cries are for her father, for Our Lady, and for her brother, who is a hunter in the forest. The hunter makes all haste to his sister, twists a withe, and hangs the knight without a word between them, then takes his sister by the hand and conducts her home, with the advice never more to trust a knight: for all which she returns her devout thanks.[46]

K and L are of the same length and the same tenor as J. There are no names in L; in K both Annele and Ulrich, but the latter is very likely to have been inserted by the editor. K, L have only one dove, and in neither does the lady ask the meaning of the dove's song. The knight simply says, "Be still; thou liest in thy throat!" Both have the bloody spring, but out of place, for it is very improperly spoken of by the knight as the spot he is making for:

'Wir wollen ein wenig weiter vorwärts faren, Bis zu einem kühlen Waldbrunnen, Der ist mit Blut überronnen.'[47]

L 26-28, 17-19.

The three cries are for father, mother, brother. In K the brother fights with "Ulrich" two hours and a half before he can master him, then despatches him with his two-edged sword, and hangs him in a withe. He fires his rifle in L, to announce his coming, and hears his sister's laugh; then stabs the knight through the heart. The moral of J is repeated in both: Stay at home, and trust no knight.

M smacks decidedly of the bänkelsänger, and has an appropriate moral at the tail: animi index cauda! The characters are a cavalier and a girl, both nameless, and a brother. The girl, hearing the knight sing "ein Liedchen von dreierlei Stimmen," which should seem to signify a three-part song, says, "Ah, could I sing like him, I would straightway give him my honor." They ride to the wood, and come upon a hazel-bush with three doves, one of which informs the maid that she will be betrayed, the second that she will die that day, and the third that she will be buried in the wood. The second and third doves, as being false prophets, and for other reasons, may safely be pronounced intruders. All is now lost till we come to the cries, which are addressed to father, mother, and brother. The brother stabs the traitor to the heart.[48]

N is as short as M, and, like it, has no names, but has all the principal points: the fascinating song, the dove on the bush, eleven maids in the fir, the three cries, and the rescue by the huntsman-brother, who cocks his gun and shoots the knight. The reciter of this ballad gave the editor to understand that if the robber had succeeded in his twelfth murder, he would have attained such powers that nobody after that could harm him.[49]

O is a fairly well-preserved ballad, resembling G-J as to the course of the story. Anneli, lying under the casement, hears the knight singing as he rides through the reeds. The elaborate toilet is omitted, as in I, J. The knight makes haste to the dark wood. They come to a cold spring, "mit Bluot war er überrunnen;" then to a hazel, behind which a dove coos ominously. Anneli says, Listen. The dove coos you are a false man, that will not spare my life. No, says the knight, that is not it; the dove is cooing about its blue foot, for its fate is to freeze in winter. The cloak is thrown on the grass, the eleven maids in the fir are descried, and Anneli is told she must hang highest, and be empress over all. He concedes her as many cries as she likes, for only the wood-birds will hear. She calls on God, the Virgin, and her brother. The brother thinks he hears his sister's voice, calls to his groom to saddle, comes upon the knight while he is twisting a withe for his horse, as he says, ties him to the end of the withe, and makes him pay for all he has perpetrated in the wood. He then swings Anneli behind him, and rides home with her.

P, the other Swiss ballad, has been retouched, and more than retouched in places, by a modern pen. Still the substance of the story, and, on the whole, the popular tone, is preserved. Fair Anneli, in the miller's house, hears the knight singing as he rides through the rushes, and runs down-stairs and calls to him: she would go off with him if she could sing like that, and her clothes are fit for any young lady. The knight promises that he will teach her his song if she will go with him, and bids her put these fine clothes on. They ride to the wood. A dove calls from the hazel, "He will betray thee." Anneli asks what the dove is saying, and is answered much as in J and O, that it is talking about its frost-bitten feet and claws. The knight tears through the wood, to the great peril of Anneli's gown and limbs, and when he has come to the right place, spreads his cloak on the grass, and makes the usual request. She weeps when she sees eleven maids in the fir-tree, and receives the customary consolation:

'Weep not too sore, my Anneli, 'Tis true thou art doomed the twelfth to be; Up to the highest tip must thou go, And a margravine be to all below; Must be an empress over the rest, And hang the highest of all as the best.'

The request to be allowed three cries is lost. The knight tells her to cry as much as she pleases, he knows no one will come; the wild birds will not hear, and the doves are hushed. She cries to father, mother, and brother. The brother, who is sitting over his wine at the inn, hears, saddles his best horse, rides furiously, and comes first to a spring filled with locks of maid's hair and red with maid's blood; then to a bush, where the knight (Rüdeli, Rudolph) is twisting his withe. He bids his sister be silent, for the withe is not for her; the villain is twisting it for his own neck, and shall be dragged at the tail of his horse.

Q resembles the Swabian ballads, and presents only these variations from the regular story. The dove adds to the warning, "Fair maid, be not beguiled," what we find nowhere else, "Yonder I see a cool spring, around which blood is running." The knight, to remove the maid's anxiety, says, "Let it talk; it does not know me; I am no such murderer." The end is excessively feeble. When the brother, a hunter as before, reaches his sister, "a robber runs away," and then the brother takes her by the hand, conducts her to her father's land, and enjoins her to stay at home and spin silk. There are no names.

There is one feature entirely peculiar to R. The knight carries off the maid, as before, but when they come to the hazel bush there are eleven doves that sing this "new song:"

'Be not beguiled, maiden, The knight is beguiling thee:

'We are eleven already, Thou shalt be the twelfth.'

The eleven doves are of course the spirits of the eleven preceding victims. The maid's inquiry as to what they mean is lost. The knight's evasion is not ingenious, but more likely to allay suspicion than simply saying, "I am no such murderer." He says, "Fear not: the doves are singing a song that is common in these parts." When they come to the spring "where blood and water are running," and the maid asks what strange spring is this, the knight answers in the same way, and perhaps could not do better: "Fear not: there is in these parts a spring that runs blood and water." This spring is misplaced, for it occurs before they enter the wood. The last scene in the ballad is incomplete, and goes no further than the brother's exclamation when he comes in upon the knight: "Stop, young knight! Spare my sister's life." The parties in R are nameless.

So again in S, which also has neither the knight's enchanting song nor the bloody spring. There are two doves, as in J, stanza 4. The cries are addressed to mother, father, brother, as in N, and, as in N, again, the brother cocks his gun, and shoots the knight down;[50] then calmly leads his sister home, with the warning against knights.

(III.) T, the first of the third series, has marked signs of deterioration. Ulrich does not enchant Ännchen by his song, and promise to teach it to her; he offers to teach her "bird-song." They walk out together, apparently, and come to a hazel, with no dove; neither is there any spring. Annie sits down on the grass; Ulrich lays his head in her lap; she weeps, and he asks why. It is for eleven maids in the fir-tree, as so often before. Ulrich's style has become much tamer:

'Ah, Annie, Annie, dear to me, How soon shalt thou the twelfth one be!'

She begs for three cries, and calls to her father, to God, to her youngest brother. The last is sitting over the wine and hears. He demands of Ulrich where she is, and is told, Upon yon linden, spinning silk. Then ensues this dialogue: Why are your shoes blood-red? Why not? I have shot a dove. That dove my mother bare under her breast. Annie is laid in the grave, and angels sing over her; Ulrich is broken on the wheel, and round him the ravens cry.

There is no remnant or reminiscence of the magical singing in U. Schön Ulrich and Roth Ännchen go on a walk, and come first to a fir-tree, then a green mead. The next scene is exactly as in T. Ulrich says the eleven maids were his wives, and that he had thrust his sword through their hearts. Annie asks for three sighs, and directs them to God, to Jesus, and to her youngest brother. He is sitting over his wine, when the sigh comes into the window, and Ulrich simultaneously in at the door. The remainder is very much as in T.

V differs from U only in the names, which are Schön-Heinrich and Schön-Ännelein, and in the "sighs" returning to cries, which invoke God, father, and brother.

W begins with a rivalry between Ulrich and Hanselein[51] for the hand of Rautendelein (Rautendchen). Ulrich is successful. She packs up her jewels, and he takes her to a wood, where she sees eleven maids hanging. He assures her she shall presently be the twelfth. It is then they sit down, and she leans her head on his breast and weeps, "because," as she says, "I must die." His remark upon this, if there was any, is lost. Hoffmann inserts a stanza from another Silesian copy, in which Ulrich says, Rather than spare thy life, I will run an iron stake through thee. She asks for three cries, and he says, Four, if you want. She prefers four, and calls to her father, mother, sister, brother. The brother, as he sits over the wine, hears the cry, and almost instantly Ulrich comes in at the door. He pretends to have killed a dove; the brother knows what dove, and hews off Ulrich's head, with a speech like that in I. Still, as Rautendchen is brought to the grave, with toll of bells, so Ulrich is mounted on the wheel, where ravens shriek over him.

X. Albrecht and Hänselein woo Alalein. She is promised to Albrecht, but Hänsel gets her. He takes her to a green mead, spreads his mantle on the grass, and she sits down. His lying in her lap and her discovery of the awful tree are lost. She weeps, and he tells her she shall be "his eleventh." Her cries are condensed into one stanza:

'Gott Vater, Sohn, Herr Jesu Christ, Mein jüngster Bruder, wo Du bist!'

Her brother rides in the direction of the voice, and meets Hänselein in the wood, who says Alalein is sitting with princes and counts. The conclusion is as in T, U, V.

Y has Ansar Uleraich wooing a king's daughter, Annle, to the eighth year. He takes her to a fir-wood, then to a fir, a stump of a tree, a spring; in each case bidding her sit down. At the spring he asks her if she wishes to be drowned, and, upon her saying no, cuts off her head. He has not walked half a mile before he meets her brother. The brother inquires where Ulrich has left his sister, and the reply is, "By the green Rhine." The conclusion is as in W. Ulrich loses his head, and the brother pronounces the imprecation which is found there and in I.[52]

Z, which takes us back from Eastern Germany to the Rhine, combines features from all the three groups. Ulrich fascinates a king's daughter by his song. She collects her gold and jewels, as in W, and goes to a wood, where a dove warns her that she will be betrayed. Ulrich appropriates her valuables, and they wander about till they come to the Rhine. There he takes her into a wood, and gives her a choice between hanging and drowning, and, she declining both, says she shall die by his sword. But first she is allowed three cries,—to God, her parents, her youngest brother. The youngest brother demands of Ulrich where he has left his sister. "Look in my pocket, and you shall find fourteen tongues, and the last cut [reddest] of all is your sister's." The words were scarcely out of his mouth before Ulrich's sword had taken off his head.

The three classes of the German ballad, it will be observed, have for their principal distinction that in I the maid saves her own life by an artifice, and takes the life of her treacherous suitor; in II, she is rescued by her brother, who also kills the traitor; in III, she dies by the villain's hand, and he by her brother's, or by a public execution. There are certain subordinate traits which are constant, or nearly so, in each class. In I, A-F, a choice of deaths is invariably offered; the maid gets the advantage of the murderer by persuading him to take off his coat [distorted in F, which has lost its conclusion]; and, on her way home, she falls in with one or more of the robber's family, mother, brothers, servant, who interrogate her [except F, which, as just said, is a fragment]. Class II has several marks of its own. All the thirteen ballads [G-S], except the last, represent the knight as fascinating the maid by his singing; in all but Q she is warned of her danger by a dove,[53] or more than one; in all but the much-abridged M, N, the knight spreads his cloak on the grass, they sit down, and, excepting M, N, R, the unromantic service is repeated which she undertakes in Danish A, B, D, E, F, H, L, Swedish A, Norwegian A, B. The bloody spring occurs in some form, though often not quite intelligible, in H, J, K, L, O, P, Q, R (also in D, Y). All but the much-abridged M, N have the question, What are you weeping for? your father's land, humbled pride, lost honor? etc.; but this question recurs in T, U, V, W. The cries for help are a feature of both the second and the third class, and are wanting only in Y. Class III differs from I, and resembles II, in having the cries for help, and, in the less impaired forms, T-W, the knight spreads his cloak, lies down with his head in the lady's lap, and asks the cause of her tears. Beyond this, and the changed catastrophe, the ballads of Class III are distinguished by what they have lost.

Forms in which the story of this is mixed with that of some other German ballad remain to be noticed.

A. A ballad first published in Nicolai's Almanach, II, 100, No 21 (1778), and since reprinted, under the titles, 'Liebe ohne Stand,' 'Der Ritter und die Königstochter,' etc., but never with absolute fidelity, in Wunderhorn (1819), I, 37 (== Erlach, II, 120), Kretzschmer, No 72, I, 129; Mittler, No 89; Erk, Neue Sammlung, iii, 18, No 14; also, with a few changes, by Zuccalmaglio, No. 95, p. 199, as 'aus Schwaben;' by Erk, Liederhort, No 28, p. 90, as "corrected from oral tradition;" and as "from oral tradition," in Erk's Wunderhorn (1857), I, 39. Independent versions are given by Mittler, No 90, p. 83, from Oberhessen; Pröhle, Weltliche u. geistliche Volkslieder, No 5, p. 10, from the Harz; Reifferscheid, No 18, p. 36, from Bökendorf. Erk refers to still another copy, five stanzas longer than Nicolai's, from Hesse-Darmstadt, Neue Sammlung, iii, 19, note.

What other ballad is here combined with Ulinger, it is impossible to make out. The substance of the narrative is that a knight rides singing through the reeds, and is heard by a king's daughter, who forthwith desires to go with him. They ride till the horse is hungry [tired]; he spreads his cloak on the grass, and makes, sans façon, his usual request. The king's daughter sheds many tears, and he asks why. "Had I followed my father's counsel, I might have been empress." The knight cuts off her head at the word, and says, Had you held your tongue, you would have kept your head. He throws the body behind a tree, with Lie there and rot; my young heart must mourn [no knight, a knight, shall mourn over thee]. Another stanza or two, found in some versions, need not be particularly noticed.

'Stolz Sieburg,' Simrock, No 8, p. 21, from the Rhine, Mittler, No 88, is another and somewhat more rational form of the same story. To the question whether she is weeping for Gut, Muth, Ehre, the king's daughter answers:

'Ich wein um meine Ehre, Ich wollt gern wieder umkehren.'

For this Stolz Sieburg strikes off her head, with a speech like that which we have just had, and throws it into a spring; then resolves to hang himself.[54]

A Dutch version of this ballad, Le Jeune, No 92, p. 292; Willems, No 72, p. 186; Hoffmann, No 29, p. 92, has less of the Halewyn in it, and more motive than the German, though less romance. "If you might have been an empress," says the knight, "I, a margrave's son, will marry you to-morrow." "I would rather lose my head than be your wife," replies the lady; upon which he cuts off her head and throws it into a fountain, saying, Lie there, smiling mouth! Many a thousand pound have you cost me, and many pence of red gold. Your head is clean cut off.

B. The Ulinger story is also found combined with that of the beautiful ballad, 'Wassermanns Braut.'[55] (1.) In a Transylvanian ballad, 'Brautmörder,' Schuster, Siebenbürgisch-sächsische Volkslieder, p. 57, No 54 A, 38 vv, with variations, and p. 59, B, a fragment of 10 vv; (A in a translation, Böhme, No 14, p. 61.) A king from the Rhine sues seven years for a king's daughter, and does not prevail till the eighth. She begs her mother not to consent, for she has seen it in the sun that she shall not long be her daughter, in the moon that she shall drown before the year is out, in the bright stars that her blood shall be dispersed far and wide. He takes her by the hand, and leads her through a green wood, at the end of which a grave is already made. He pushes her into the grave, and drives a stake through her heart. The princess' brother asks what has become of his sister. "I left her on the Rhine, drinking mead and wine." "Why are your skirts so bloody?" "I have shot a turtle-dove." "That turtle-dove was, mayhap, my sister." They spit him on a red-hot stake, and roast him like a fish. Lines 1-4 of this ballad correspond to 1-4 of Y (which last agree with 1-4 of Meinert's 'Wassermanns Braut'); 17, 18, to Y 5, 6; 25-34 to 21-30; and we find in verse 22 the stake through the heart which Hoffmann has interpolated in W, stanza 12.

(2.) A Silesian copy of 'Wassermanns Braut,' co[llecte]d by [Ho]ffman contributed to Deutsches Museum, 1852, II, 164, represents the bride, after she has fallen into the water and has been recovered by the nix, as asking for three cries, and goes on from this point like the Ulrich ballad W, the conclusion being that the sister is drowned before the brother comes to her aid.[56]

'Nun schürz dich, Gredlein,' "Forster's Frische Liedlein, No 66," Böhme, No 53, Uhland, No 256 A, which is of the date 1549, and therefore older than the Nuremberg and Augsburg broadsides, has derived stanzas 7-9 from an Ulinger ballad, unless this passage is to be regarded as common property. Some copies of the ballad commonly called 'Müllertücke' have also adopted verses from Ulinger, especially that in Meier's Schwäbische Volkslieder, No 233, p. 403.

A form of ballad resembling English C-F, but with some important differences, is extraordinarily diffused in Poland. There is also a single version of the general type of English A, or, better, of the first class of the German ballads. This version, A, Pauli, Pieśńi ludu Polskiego w Galicyi, p. 90, No 5, and Kolberg, Pieśni ludu Polskiego, No 5, bbb, p. 70, runs thus. There was a man who went about the world wiling away young girls from father and mother. He had already done this with eight; he was now carrying off the ninth. He took her to a frightful wood; then bade her look in the direction of her house. She asked, "What is that white thing that I see on yon fir?" "There are already eight of them," he said, "and you shall be the ninth; never shall you go back to your father and mother. Take off that gown, Maria." Maria was looking at his sword. "Don't touch, Maria, for you will wound your pretty little hands." "Don't mind my hands, John," she replied, "but rather see what a bold heart I have;" and instantly John's head flew off. Then follows a single stanza, which seems to be addressed to John's mother, after the manner of the German A, etc.: "See, dear mother! I am thy daughter-in-law, who have just put that traitor out of the world." There is a moral for conclusion, which is certainly a later addition.

The other ballads may be arranged as follows, having regard chiefly to the catastrophe. B, Kolberg, No 5, oo: C, rr: D, ccc: E, dd: F, uu: G, ww: H, t: I, u: J, gg: K, mm: L, Wacław z Oleska, p. 483, 2, Kolberg, p: L*, Kozłowski, Lud, p. 33, No IV: M, Wojcicki, I, 234, Kolberg, r: N, Wojcicki, I, 82, Kolberg, s: O, Kolberg, d: P, ib. f: Q, pp: R, Wojcicki, I, 78, Kolberg, e: S, Kolberg, l: T, ib. n: U, Pauli, Pjeśńi ludu Polskiego w Galicyi, p. 92, No 6, Kolberg, q: V, Kolberg, y: W, Wojcicki, II, 298, "J. Lipiński, Pieśni ludu Wielkopolskiego, p. 34," Kolberg, ee; X, Kolberg, a: Y, ib. z: Z, aa: AA, qq: BB, w; CC, ddd: DD, m: EE, c: FF, o: GG, łł: HH, ss: II, ii: JJ, ff: KK, tt: LL, i: MM, g*. In B-K the woman comes off alive from her adventure: in O-CC, she loses her life: in L-N there is a jumble of both conclusions: DD-MM are incomplete.[57]

The story of the larger part of these ballads, conveyed as briefly as possible, is this: John, who is watering horses, urges Catherine,[58] who is drawing water, to elope with him. He bids her take silver and gold enough, that the horse may have something to carry. Catherine says her mother will not allow her to enter the new chamber. Tell her that you have a headache, says John, and she will consent. Catherine feigns a headache, is put into the new chamber, and absconds with John while her mother is asleep.[59] At a certain stage, more commonly at successive stages,—on the high road, K, P, S, DD, II, LL, in a dark wood, D, P, T, X, Z, DD, EE, at a spring, D, K, S, T, V, W, X, Y, Z, EE, II, LL, etc.,—he bids her take off, or himself takes from her, her "rich attire," D, P, T, V, W, X, Y, Z, DD, EE, her satin gown, D, T, X, DD, EE, her French or Turkish costume, K, P, II, robes of silver, K, shoes, Z, CC, FF, silk stockings, T, corals, D, X, CC, EE, pearls, T, rings, K, O-T, X, Z, CC-FF, II, LL. In many of the ballads he tells her to go back to her mother, B-G, K, L*, M, N, Q, S, U, X, Y, EE, HH-LL, sometimes after pillaging her, sometimes without mention of this. Catherine generally replies that she did not come away to have to go back, B, C, D, G, L*, M, S, U, X, Y, EE, HH, JJ, KK, LL. John seizes her by the hands and sides and throws her into a deep river [pool, water, sea]. Her apron [tress, AA, II, both apron and tress, O, petticoat, KK] is caught on a stake or stump of a tree, B, C, G, H, I, O, P, R, T, U, V, W, Y, BB, DD, EE, II, JJ, KK [in a bush D]. John cuts it away with axe or sword, G, I, O, R, T, BB, II, JJ. She cries to him for help. He replies, "I did not throw you in to help you out,"[60] B, C, F, P, U, V, W, X, Z, EE, II. Catherine is drawn ashore in a fisherman's net [swims ashore I, J, GG].

Catherine comes out from the water alive in B-N. The brother who plays so important a part in the second class of German ballads, appears also in a few of the Polish versions, B, C, D, and L*, O, P, Q, X, but is a mere shadow. In B 21, 22, and C 16, 17, the brother, who is "on the mountain," and may be supposed to hear the girl's cry, slides down a silken cord, which proves too short, and the girl "adds her tress"! He asks the fishermen to throw their nets for her. She is rescued, goes to church, takes an humble place behind the door, and, when her eyes fall on the young girls, melts into tears. Her apron catches in a bush in D: she plucks a leaf, and sends it down the stream to her mother's house. The mother says to the father, "Do you not see how Catherine is perishing?" The leaf is next sent down stream to her sister's house, who says to her brother, "Do you not see how Catherine is perishing?" He rides up a high mountain, and slides down his silken cord. Though one or two stanzas are lost, or not given, the termination was probably the same as in B, C. In L* 15, O 12, the brother, on a high mountain, hears the cry for help, and slides down to his sister on a silken cord, but does nothing. X does not account for the brother's appearance: he informs the fishermen of what has happened, and they draw Catherine out, evidently dead. The brother hears the cry from the top of a wall in P 21, 22; slides down his cord; the sister adds her tress; he directs the fishermen to draw her out; she is dead. Instead of the brother on the wall, we have a mason in Q 27 [perhaps "the brother on the wall" in P is a mason]. It is simply said that "he added" a silken cord: the fishermen drew out Catherine dead. The conclusion is equally, or more, impotent in all the versions in which the girl escapes from drowning. In G, I, J, she seats herself on a stone, and apostrophizes her hair, saying [in G, I], "Dry, my locks, dry, for you have had much pleasure in the river!" She goes to church, takes an humble place, and weeps, in E, F, G, as in B, C, D. John goes scot-free in all these.[61] Not so in the more vigorous ballads of tragic termination. Fierce pursuit is made for him. He is cut to pieces, or torn to pieces, O, P, S, T, Y; broken on the wheel, L, U, V, W; cleft in two, BB; broken small as barley-corns, or quartered, by horses, L*, Z; committed to a dungeon, to await, as we may hope, one of these penalties, Q, R. The bells toll for Catherine [the organs play for her], and she is laid in the grave, O-W, Y, Z, L, L*.

There are, besides, in various ballads of this second class, special resemblances to other European forms. The man (to whom rank of any sort is assigned only in N[62]) comes from a distant country, or from over the border, in O, Q, R, T, DD, GG, as in English D, E. The maid is at a window in M, W, as in German G, J, M, O, P, Q, etc. In Q 2, John, who has come from over the border, persuades the maid to go with him by telling her that in his country "the mountains are golden, the mountains are of gold, the ways of silk," reminding us of the wonderland in Danish A, E, etc. After the pair have stolen away, they go one hundred and thirty miles, O, DD, FF; thrice nine miles, Q; nine and a half miles, T; cross one field and another, M, R; travel all night, GG; and neither says a word to the other. We shall find this trait further on in French B, D, Italian B, C, D, F, G. The choice of deaths which we find in German A-F appears in J. Here, after passing through a silent wood, they arrive at the border of the (red) sea. She sits down on a stone, he on a rotten tree. He asks, By which death will you die: by my right hand, or by drowning in this river? They come to a dark wood in AA; he seats himself on a beech-trunk, she near a stream. He asks, Will you throw yourself into the river, or go home to your mother? So H, and R nearly.[63] She prefers death to returning. Previous victims are mentioned in T, DD, HH. When she calls from the river for help, he answers, T 22, You fancy you are the only one there; six have gone before, and you are the seventh: HH 16, Swim the river; go down to the bottom; six maids are there already, and you shall be the seventh [four, fifth]: DD 13, Swim, swim away, to the other side; there you will see my seventh wife.[64]

Other Slavic forms of this ballad resemble more or less the third German class. A Wendish version from Upper Lusatia, Haupt and Schmaler, Part I, No I, p. 27, makes Hilžička (Lizzie) go out before dawn to cut grass. Hołdrašk suddenly appears, and says she must pay him some forfeit for trespassing in his wood. She has nothing but her sickle, her silver finger-ring, and, when these are rejected, her wreath, and that, she says, he shall not have if she dies for it. Hołdrašk, who avows that he has had a fancy for her seven years (cf. German Y, and the Transylvanian mixed form B), gives her her choice, to be cut to pieces by his sword, or trampled to death by his horse. Which way pleases him, she says, only she begs for three cries. All three are for her brothers. They ride round the wood twice, seeing nobody; the third time Hołdrak comes up to them. Then follows the dialogue about the bloody sword and the dove. When asked where he has left Hiłžička, Hołdrašk is silent. The elder brother seizes him, the younger dispatches him with his sword.

Very similar is a Bohemian ballad, translated in Waldau's Böhmische Granaten, II, 25.[65] While Katie is cutting grass, early in the morning, Indriasch presents himself, and demands some for his horse. She says, You must dismount, if your horse is to have grass. "If I do, I will take away your wreath." "Then God will not grant you his blessing." He springs from his horse, and while he gives it grass with one hand snatches at the wreath with the other. "Will you die, or surrender your wreath?" Take my life, she says, but allow me three cries. Two cries reached no human ear, but the third cry her mother heard, and called to her sons to saddle, for Katie was calling in the wood, and was in trouble. They rode over stock and stone, and came to a brook where Indriasch was washing his hands. The same dialogue ensues as in the Wendish ballad. The brothers hewed the murderer into fragments.

A Servian ballad has fainter but unmistakable traces of the same tradition: Vuk, Srpske Narodne Pjesme, I, 282, No 385, ed. 1841; translated by Goetze, Serbische V. L., p. 99, by Talvj, V. L. der Serben, 2d ed., II, 172, by Kapper, Gesänge der Serben, II, 318. Mara is warned by her mother not to dance with Thomas. She disobeys. Thomas, while dancing, gives a sign to his servants to bring horses. The two ride off, and when they come to the end of a field Thomas says, Seest thou yon withered maple? There thou shalt hang, ravens eat out thine eyes, eagles beat thee with their wings. Mara shrieks, Ah me! so be it with every girl that does not take her mother's advice.[66]

French. This ballad is well known in France, and is generally found in a form resembling the English; that is to say, the scene of the attempted murder is the sea or a river (as in no other but the Polish), and the lady delivers herself by an artifice. One French version nearly approaches Polish O-CC.

A. 'Renauld et ses quatorze Femmes,' 44 vv, Paymaigre, Chants populaires recueillis dans le pays messin, No 31, I, 140. Renauld carried off the king's daughter. When they were gone half-way, she called to him that she was dying of hunger (cf. German A-F). Eat your hand, he answered, for you will never eat bread again. When they had come to the middle of the wood, she called out that she was dying of thirst. Drink your blood, he said, for you will never drink wine again. When they came to the edge of the wood, he said, Do you see that river? Fourteen dames have been drowned there, and you shall be the fifteenth. When they came to the river-bank, he bade her put off her cloak, her shift. It is not for knights, she said, to see ladies in such plight; they should bandage their eyes with a handkerchief. This Renauld did, and the fair one threw him into the river. He laid hold of a branch; she cut it off with his sword (cf. the Polish ballad, where the catastrophe, and consequently this act, is reversed). "What will they say if you go back without your lover?" "I will tell them that I did for you what you meant to do for me."[67] "Reach me your hand; I will marry you Sunday."

"Marry, marry a fish, Renauld, The fourteen women down below."

B. 'De Dion et de la Fille du Roi,' from Auvergne, Ampère, Instructions, etc., 40 vv, p. 40, stanzas 15-24, the first fourteen constituting another ballad.[68] The pair went five or six leagues without exchanging a word; only the fair one said, I am so hungry I could eat my fist. Eat it, replied Dion, for you never again will eat bread. Then they went five or six leagues in silence, save that she said, I am so thirsty I could drink my blood. "Drink it, for you never will drink wine. Over there is a pond in which fifteen ladies have had a bath, have drowned themselves, and you will make sixteen." Arrived at the pond, he orders her to take off her clothes. She tells him to put his sword under his feet, his cloak before his face, and turn to the pond; and, when he has done so, pushes him in. Here are my keys! he cries. "I don't want them; I will find locksmiths." "What will your friends say?" "I will tell them I did by you as you would have done by me."

C. 'Veux-tu venir, bell' Jeanneton,' 32 vv, from Poitou and Aunís, Bujeaud, II, 232. When they reach the water, the fair one asks for a drink. The man says, incoherently enough, Before drinking of this white wine I mean to drink your blood. The stanza that should tell how many have been drowned before is lost. Jeanneton, having been ordered to strip, pushes the "beau galant" into the sea, while, at her request, he is pulling off her stockings. He catches at a branch; she cuts it off, and will not hear to his entreaties.

D. 'En revenant de la jolie Rochelle,' twelve two-line stanzas, Gagnon, Chansons populaires du Canada, p. 155. A cavalier meets three fair maids, mounts the fairest behind him, and rides a hundred leagues without speaking to her, at the end of which she asks to drink. He takes her to a spring, but when there she does not care to drink. The rest of the ballad is pointless, and shows that the original story has been completely forgotten.

E. 'Belle, allons nous épromener,' from the Lyonnais, 28 vv, Champfleury, Chansons des Provinces, p. 172, is like C, but still more defective. The pair go to walk by "la mer courante." There is no order for the lady to strip: on the contrary, she cries, Déshabillez-moi, déchaussez-moi! and, while the man is drawing off her shoe, "la belle avance un coup de pied, le beau galant tombe dans l'eau."

F. 'Allons, mie, nous promener,' 32 vv, Poésies populaires de la France, MS., III, fol. 84, No 16, is like C. The lady asks the man to pull off her shoes before he kills her. The man clutches a branch; the woman cuts it away.

G. 'Le Traître Noyé,' Chants pop. du Velay et du Forez, Romania, X, 199, is like E, F.

H. 'La Fillette et le Chevalier,' Victor Smith, Chants pop. du Velay et du Forez, Romania, X, 198, resembles the common Polish ballad. Pierre rouses his love early in the morning, to take a ride with him. He mounts her on his horse, and when they come to a lonesome wood bids her alight, for it is the last of her days. He plunges his sword into her heart, and throws her into a river. Her father and mother come searching for her, and are informed of her fate by a shepherdess, who had witnessed the murder. The youngest of her three brothers plunges into the water, exclaiming, Who threw you in? An angel descends, and tells him it was her lover. A less romantic version, described in a note, treats of a valet who is tired of an amour with a servant-girl. He is judicially condemned to be hanged or burned.

'La Fille de Saint-Martin de l'Ile,' Bujeaud, II, 226, has the conclusion of the third class of German ballads. A mother incites her son to make away with his wife. He carries her off on his horse to a wheat-field [wood], and kills her with sword and dagger. Returning, he meets his wife's brother, who asks why his shoes are covered with blood. He says he has been killing rabbits. The brother replies, I see by your paleness that you have been killing my sister. So Gérard de Nerval, Les Filles du Feu, Œuvres Com., V, 134, and La Bohème galante (1866), p. 79: 'Rosine,' Chants pop. du Velay, etc., Romania, X, 197.

The ballad is known over all North Italy, and always nearly in one shape.

A. 'Monchisa,' sixty-four short verses, Bernoni, Canti popolari veneziani, Puntata v, No 2. A count's son asks Monchesa, a knight's daughter, in marriage in the evening, espouses her in the morning, and immediately carries her off. When they are "half-way," she heaves a sigh, which she says is for father and mother, whom she shall no more see. The count points out his castle; he has taken thirty-six maids there, robbed them of their honor, and cut off their heads. "So will I do with you when we are there." The lady says no word till she is asked why she is silent; then requests the count to lend her his sword; she wishes to cut a branch to shade her horse. The moment she gets the sword in her hand, she plunges it into his heart; then throws the body into a ditch. On her way back, she meets her brother, whom she tells that she is looking after the assassins who have killed her husband. He fears it was she; this she denies, but afterwards says she must go to Rome to confess a great sin. There she obtains prompt absolution.

B. 'La Figlia del Conte,' Adolf Wolf, Volkslieder aus Venetien, No 73, a, 34 vv, b, 48 vv. Here it is the daughter of a count that marries Malpreso, the son of a knight. He takes her to France immediately. She goes sixty miles (b) without speaking. She confesses to her brother what she has done.

C. Righi, Canti popolari veronesi, 58 vv, No 94*, p. 30. The count's son marries Mampresa, a knight's daughter. For thirty-six miles she does not speak; after five more she sighs. She denies to her brother having killed her husband, but still says she must go to the pope to confess an old sin; then owns what she has done.

D. 'La Monferrina,' 48 vv, Nigra, Canzoni popolari del Piemonte, in Rivista Contemporanea, XXIV, 76. The lady is a Monferrina, daughter of a knight. After the marriage they travel fifty miles without speaking to one another. Fifty-two Monferrine have lost their heads; the bridegroom does not say why. She goes to the Pope to confess.

E. 'La Vendicatrice,' an incomplete copy from Alexandria, 18 vv only, Marcoaldi, Canti popolari, No 12, p. 166, like D, as far as it goes. Thirty-three have been beheaded before.

F. 'La Inglese,' 40 vv, Ferraro, Canti popolari di Ferrara, Cento e Pontelagoscuro, No 2, p. 14. The count's son marries an English girl, daughter of a knight. She never speaks for more than three hundred miles; after two hundred more she sighs. She denies having killed her husband; has not a heart of that kind.

G. 'La Liberatrice,' 24 vv, Ferraro, Canti popolari monferrini, No 3, p. 4. Gianfleisa is the lady's name. When invited to go off, she says, If you wish me to go, lend me a horse. Not a word is spoken for five hundred miles. The man (Gilardu) points out his castle, and says that no one he has taken there has ever come back. Gianfleisa goes home without meeting anybody.

'Laura,' Ferraro, C. p. di Pontelagoscuro, Rivista di Filologia romanza, II, 197, and C. p. di Ferrara, etc., p. 86, is a mixture of this ballad with another. Cf. 'La Maledetta,' Ferraro, C. p. monferrini, No 27, p. 35.

Several other French and Italian ballads have common points with Renauld, Monchisa, etc., and for this have sometimes been improperly grouped with them: e.g., 'La Fille des Sables,' Bujeaud, II, 177 ff. A girl sitting by the water-side hears a sailor sing, and asks him to teach her the song. He says, Come aboard, and I will. He pushes off, and by and by she begins to weep.[69] She says, My father is calling me to supper. "You will sup with me." "My mother is calling me to bed." "You will sleep with me." They go a hundred leagues, and not a word said, and at last reach his father's castle. When she is undressing, her lace gets into a knot. He suggests that his sword would cut it. She plunges the sword into her heart. So 'Du Beau Marinier,' Beaurepaire, p. 57 f, and Poésies populaires de la France, MS., III, fol. 59, No 4; 'L'Épée Libératrice,' V. Smith, Chansons du Velay, etc., Romania, VII, 69, nearly; also 'Il Corsaro,' Nigra, Rivista Coutemporanea, XXIV, p. 86 ff. In 'La Monferrina Incontaminata,' Ferraro, C. p. m., No 2, p. 3, a French knight invites a girl to go off with him, and mounts her behind him. They ride five hundred miles without speaking, then reach an inn, after which the story is the same. So Bernoni, Puntata IX, No 2. 'La Fille du Patissier,' Paymaigre, No 30, p. 93, has the same conclusion. All these, except 'La Fille des Sables,' make the girl ask for the sword herself, and in all it is herself that she kills.

The Spanish preserves this ballad in a single form, the earliest printed in any language, preceding, by a few years, even the German broadsides G, H.

'Romance de Rico Franco,' 36 vv, "Cancionero de Romances, s. a., fol. 191: Canc. de Rom., ed. de 1550, fol. 202: ed. de 1555, fol. 296;" Wolf and Hofmann, Primavera, No 119, II, 22: Duran, No 296, I, 160: Grimm, p. 252: Depping and Galiano, 1844, II, 167: Ochoa, p. 7. The king's huntsmen got no game, and lost the falcons. They betook themselves to the castle of Maynes, where was a beautiful damsel, sought by seven counts and three kings. Rico Franco of Aragon carried her off by force. Nothing is said of a rest in a wood, or elsewhere; but that something has dropped out here is shown by the corresponding Portuguese ballad. The lady wept. Rico Franco comforted her thus: If you are weeping for father and mother, you shall never see them more; and if for your brothers, I have killed them all three. I am not weeping for them, she said, but because I know not what my fate is to be. Lend me your knife to cut the fringes from my mantle, for they are no longer fit to wear. This Rico Franco did, and the damsel thrust the knife into his breast. Thus she avenged father, mother, and brothers.

A Portuguese ballad has recently been obtained from tradition in the island of St. George, Azores, which resembles the Spanish closely, but is even curter: A, 'Romance de Dom Franco,' 30 vv; B, 'Dona Inez,' a fragment of 18 vv; Braga, Cantos populares do Archipelago açoriano, No 48, p. 316, No 49, p. 317: Hartung's Romanceiro, II, 61, 63. Dona Inez was so precious in the eyes of her parents that they gave her neither to duke nor marquis. A knight who was passing [the Duke of Turkey, B] took a fancy to her, and stole her away. When they came to the middle of the mountain ridge on which Dona Inez lived, the knight stopped to rest, and she began to weep. From this point Portuguese A, and B so far as it is preserved, agree very nearly with the Spanish.[70]

Certain Breton ballads have points of contact with the Halewyn-Ulinger class, but, like the French and Italian ballads mentioned on the preceding page, have more important divergences, and especially the characteristic distinction that the woman kills herself to preserve her honor. 1. 'Jeanne Le Roux,' Luzel, I, 324 ff, in two versions; Poésies pop. de la France, MS., III, fol. 182. The sieur La Tremblaie attempts the abduction of Jeanne from the church immediately after her marriage ceremony. As he is about to compel her to get up on the crupper of his horse, she asks for a knife to cut her bridal girdle, which had been drawn too tight. He gives her the choice of three, and she stabs herself in the heart. La Tremblaie remarks, I have carried off eighteen young brides, and Jeanne is the nineteenth, words evidently taken from the mouth of a Halewyn, and not belonging here. 2. Le Marquis de Coatredrez, Luzel, I, 336 ff, meets a young girl on the road, going to the pardon of Guéodet, and forces her on to his horse. On the way and at his house she vainly implores help. He takes her to the garden to gather flowers. She asks for his knife to shorten the stems, and kills herself. Early in the morning the door of the château is broken in by Kerninon, foster-brother of the victim, who forces Coatredrez to fight, and runs him through. 3. 'Rozmelchon,' Luzel, I, 308 ff, in three versions, and, 4, 'La Filleule de du Guesclin,' Villemarqué, Barzaz-Breiz, 6th ed., 212 ff, are very like 2. The wicked Rozmelchon is burned in his château in Luzel's first copy; the other two do not bring him to punishment. Villemarqué's villain is an Englishman, and has his head cloven by du Guesclin. 5. 'Marivonnic,' Luzel, I, 350 ff, a pretty young girl, is carried off by an English vessel, the captain of which shows himself not a whit behind the feudal seigneurs in ferocity. The young girl throws herself into the water.

Magyar. Five versions from recent traditions, all of them interesting, are given in Arany and Gyulai's collection of Hungarian popular poetry, 'Molnár Anna,' I, 137 ff, Nos 1-5.[71]—A, p. 141, No 3. A man, nameless here, but called in the other versions Martin Ajgó, or Martin Sajgó, invites Anna Miller to go off with him. She refuses; she has a young child and a kind husband. "Come," he says; "I have six palaces, and will put you in the seventh," and persists so long that he prevails at last. They went a long way, till they came to the middle of a green wood. He asked her to sit down in the shade of a branchy tree (so all); he would lie in her lap, and she was to look into his head (a point found in all the copies). But look not up into the tree, he said. He went to sleep (so B, D); she looked up into the tree, and saw six fair maids hanging there (so all but E). She thought to herself, He will make me the seventh! (also B, D). A tear fell on the face of the "brave sir," and waked him. You have looked up into the tree, he said. "No, but three orphans passed, and I thought of my child." He bade her go up into the tree. She was not used to go first, she said. He led the way. She seized the opportunity, tore his sword from its sheath (so C), and hewed off his head. She then wrapped herself in his cloak, sprang upon his horse, and returned home, where (in all the copies, as in this) she effected a reconcilement with her husband. B, p. 138, No 2, agrees closely with the foregoing. Martin Ajgó calls to Anna Miller to come with him a long way into the wilderness (so D, E). He boasts of no palaces in this version. He calls Anna a long time, tempts her a long time, drags her on to his horse, and carries her off. The scene under the tree is repeated. Anna pretends (so D, E) that the tear which drops on Martin's face is dew from the tree, and he retorts, How can it be dew from the tree, when the time is high noon? His sword falls out of its sheath as he is mounting the tree, and he asks her to hand it to him. She throws it up (so E), and it cuts his throat in two. Rightly served, Martin Ajgó, she says: why did you lure me from home? C, p. 144, No 4. Martin Sajgó tells Anna Miller that he has six stone castles, and is building a seventh. It is not said that he goes to sleep. As in A, Anna pulls his sword from the scabbard. D, p. 146, No 5. Here reappears the very important feature of the wonderland: "Come, let us go, Anna Miller, a long journey into the wilderness, to a place that flows with milk and honey." Anna insists, as before, that Martin shall go up the tree first. He puts down his sword; she seizes it, and strikes off his head with one blow. E, p. 137, No 1, is somewhat defective, but agrees essentially with the others. Martin Ajgó calls Anna; she will not come; he carries her off. He lets his sword fall as he is climbing, and asks Anna to hand it up to him. She throws it up, as in B, and it cuts his back in two.

Neus, in his Ehstnische Volkslieder, maintains the affinity of 'Kallewisohnes Tod,' No 2, p. 5, with the Ulinger ballads, and even of his Holepi with the Dutch Halewyn. The resemblance is of the most distant, and what there is must be regarded as casual. The same of the Finnish 'Kojoins Sohn,' Schröter, Finnische Runen, p. 114, 115; 'Kojosen Poika,' Lönnrot, Kanteletar, p. 279.

In places where a ballad has once been known, the story will often be remembered after the verses have been wholly or partly forgotten, and the ballad will be resolved into a prose tale, retaining, perhaps, some scraps of verse, and not infrequently taking up new matter, or blending with other traditions. Naturally enough, a ballad and an equivalent tale sometimes exist side by side. It has already been mentioned that Jamieson, who had not found this ballad in Scotland, had often come upon the story in the form of a tale interspersed with verse. Birlinger at one time (1860) had not been able to obtain the ballad in the Swabian Oberland (where it has since been found in several forms), but only a story agreeing essentially with the second class of German ballads. According to this tradition, a robber, who was at the same time a portentous magician, enticed the twelve daughters of a miller, one after another, into a wood, and hanged eleven of them on a tree, but was arrested by a hunter, the brother of the twelve, before he could dispatch the last, and was handed over to justice. The object of the murders was to obtain blood for magical purposes. This story had, so to speak, naturalized itself in the locality, and the place where the robber's house had been and that where the tree had stood were pointed out. The hunter-brother was by some conceived of as the Wild Huntsman, and came to the rescue through the air with a fearful baying of dogs. (Birlinger in Volksthümliches aus Schwaben, I, 368, No 592, and Germania, 1st Ser., V, 372.)

The story of the German ballad P has attached itself to localities in the neighborhood of Weissenbach, Aargau, and is told with modifications that connect it with the history of the Guggi-, or Schongauer-, bad. A rich man by lewd living had become a leper. The devil put it into his head that he could be cured by bathing in the blood of twelve [seven] pure maidens. He seized eleven at a swoop, while they were on their way to church, and hanged them, and the next day enticed away a miller's daughter, who was delivered from death as in the ballad. A medicinal spring rose near the fatal tree. (Rochholz, I, 22.) No pure version of this ballad has been obtained in the Harz region, though a mixed form has already been spoken of; but 'Der Reiter in Seiden,' Pröhle, Märchen für die Jugend, No 32, p. 136, which comes from the western Harz, or from some place further north, on the line between Kyffhaüser and Hamburg, is, roughly speaking, only 'Gert Olbert' turned into prose, with a verse or two remaining. 'Der betrogene Betrüger,' from Mühlbach, Müller's Siebenbürgische Sagen, No 418, p. 309, has for its hero a handsome young man, addicted to women, who obtains from the devil the power of making them follow his piping, on the terms that every twelfth soul is to be the devil's share. He had taken eleven to a wood, and hanged them on a tree after he had satisfied his desire. The brother of a twelfth substituted himself for his sister, dressed in her clothes, snatched the rope from the miscreant, and ran him up on the nearest bough; upon which a voice was heard in the wind, that cried The twelfth soul is mine. Grundtvig, in his Engelske og skotske Folkeviser, p. 249, gives his recollections of a story that he had heard in his youth which has a catastrophe resembling that of English C-F. A charcoal burner had a way of taking up women beside him on his wagon, and driving them into a wood, where he forced them to take off their clothes, then killed them, and sunk them with heavy stones in a deep moss. At last a girl whom he had carried off in this way got the advantage of him by inducing him to turn away while she was undressing, and then pushing him into the moss. Something similar is found in the conclusion of a robber story in Grundtvig's Danske Folkeminder, 1861, No 30, p. 108, and in a modern Danish ballad cited in Danmarks gamle Folkeviser, IV, 24, note.**

Another Transylvanian tale, Schuster, p. 433, has a fountain, a thirsty bride, and doves (two or three) that sing to her, traits which have perhaps been derived from some Ulinger ballad; but the fountain is of an entirely different character, and the doves serve a different purpose. The tale is a variety of 'Fitchers Vogel,' Grimms, No 46, and belongs to the class of stories to which 'Bluebeard,' from its extensive popularity, has given name. The magician of 'Fitcher's Vogel' and of 'Bluebeard' becomes, or remains, a preternatural being (a hill-man) further north, as in Grundtvig's Gamle danske Minder, 1857, No 312, p. 182. There is a manifest affinity between these three species of tales and our ballad (also between the German and Danish tales and the Scandinavian ballad of 'Rosmer'), but the precise nature of this affinity it is impossible to expound. 'Bluebeard,' 'La Barbe Bleue,' Perrault, Histoires ou Contes du temps passé, 1697, p. 57 (Lefèvre), has a special resemblance to the German ballads of the second class in the four calls to sister Anne, which represent the cries to father, mother, and brother, and agrees with these ballads as to the means by which the death of the malefactor is brought about.

Looking back now over the whole field covered by this ballad, we observe that the framework of the story is essentially the same in English, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian; in the first class of the German ballads; in Polish A; in French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and Magyar. The woman delivers herself from death by some artifice,[72] and retaliates upon the man the destruction he had intended for her. The second form of the German ballad attributes the deliverance of the woman to her brother, and also the punishment of the murderer. The third form of the German ballad makes the woman lose her life, and her murderer, for the most part, to suffer the penalty of the law, though in some cases the brother takes immediate vengeance. Polish B-K may be ranked with the second German class, and O-CC still better with the third; but the brother appears in only a few of these, and, when he appears, counts for nothing. The Wendish and the Bohemian ballad have the incident of fraternal vengeance, though otherwise less like the German. The Servian ballad, a slight thing at best, is still less like, but ranks with the third German class. The oldest Icelandic copy is altogether anomalous, and also incomplete, but seems to imply the death of the woman: later copies suffer the woman to escape, without vengeance upon the murderer.

It is quite beyond question that the third class of German ballad is a derivation from the second.[73] Of the versions T-Z, Z alone has preserved clear traits of the marvellous. A king's daughter is enticed from home by Ulrich's singing, and is warned of her impending fate by the dove, as in Class II. The other ballads have the usual marks of degeneracy, a dropping or obscuring of marvellous and romantic incidents, and a declension in the rank and style of the characters. T, to be sure, has a hazel, and Y a tree-stump and a spring, and in T Ulrich offers to teach Ännchen bird-song, but these traits have lost all significance. Knight and lady sink to ordinary man and maid; for though in Y the woman is called a king's daughter, the opening stanzas of Y are borrowed from a different ballad. Ulrich retains so much of the knight that he rides to Ännchen's house, in the first stanza of T, but he apparently goes on foot with her to the wood, and this is the rule in all the other ballads of this class. As Ulrich has lost his horse, so the brother, in T, U, V, X, has lost his sword, or the use of it, and in all these (also, superfluously, in W) Ulrich, like a common felon as he was, is broken on the wheel.

That the woman should save her life by her own craft and courage is certainly a more primitive conception than that she should depend upon her brother, and the priority of this arrangement of the plot is supported, if not independently proved, by the concurrence, as to this point, of so many copies among so many nations, as also by the accordance of various popular tales. The second German form must therefore, so far forth, be regarded as a modification of the first. Among the several devices, again, which the woman employs in order to get the murderer into her power, the original would seem to be her inducing him to lay his head in her lap, which gives her the opportunity (by the use of charms or runes, in English A, Danish G, Norwegian F, H, and one form of B) to put him into a deep sleep. The success of this trick no doubt implies considerable simplicity on the part of the victim of it; not more, however, than is elsewhere witnessed in preternatural beings, whose wits are frequently represented as no match for human shrewdness. Some of the Scandinavian ballads are not liable to the full force of this objection, whatever that may be, for they make the knight express a suspicion of treachery, and the lady solemnly asseverate that she will not kill [fool, beguile] him in his sleep. And so, when he is fast bound, she cries out, Wake up, for I will not kill thee in thy sleep! This last circumstance is wanting in hardly any of the Scandinavian ballads, whereas the previous compact is found only in Danish E, F, G, H, L, Swedish A, Norwegian A, and the Icelandic ballad. Not occurring in any of the older Danish copies, it may be that the compact is an after-thought, and was inserted to qualify the improbability. But the lady's equivocation is quite of a piece with Memering's oath in 'Ravengaard and Memering,' Grundtvig, No 13, and King Dietrich's in the Dietrichsaga, Unger, c. 222, p. 206.[74]

English A and all the Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian ballads employ the stratagem of lulling the man to sleep, but these are not the only ballads in which the man lays his head in the woman's lap. This trait is observed in nearly all German ballads of the second and third class, in all the well-preserved ones, and also in the Magyar ballad. With regard to the German ballads, however, it is purposeless (for it does not advance the action of the drama in the least), and must be regarded as a relic of an earlier form.[75] English B-F and all the French ballads dispose of the traitor by a watery death. The scene is shifted from a wood to a sea-coast, pool, or river bank, perhaps to suit the locality to which the ballad had wandered. In English B, where, apparently under the influence of other ballads,[76] the lady is forced to wade into water up to her chin, the knight is pushed off his horse when bending over to give a last kiss for which he had been asked; in English C-F and French A, B, the man is induced to turn his face to save the woman's modesty; in French C-E he is made to pull off her stockings or shoes, and then, while off his guard, pitched into a sea or river. This expedient is sufficiently trivial; but still more so, and grazing on the farcical, is that which is made use of in the Dutch ballad and those of the German first class, the woman's persuading the man to take off his fine coat lest it should be spattered with her blood, and cutting off his head with his own sword while he is thus occupied. The Spanish and Portuguese ballads make the lady borrow the knight's knife to remove some of the trimming of her dress, and in the Italian she borrows his sword to cut a bough to shade her horse; for in Italian the halt in the wood is completely forgotten, and the last half of the action takes place on horseback. All these contrivances plainly have less claim to be regarded as primary than that of binding the murderer after he has been put to sleep.

The knight in English A is called an Elf, and as such is furnished with an enchanting horn, which is replaced by a harp of similar properties in B, where, however, the male personage has neither name nor any kind of designation. The elf-horn of English A is again represented by the seductive song of the Dutch ballad and of German G-R and Z. Though the lady is not lured away in the Scandinavian ballads by irresistible music,[77] Danish A, E, Norwegian A, B, and Swedish D present to her the prospect of being taken to an elf-land, or elysium, and there are traces of this in Danish G and D also, and in Polish Q. The tongue that talks after the head is off, in the Dutch ballad and in German A, B, C, E, is another mark of an unearthly being. Halewyn, Ulver, Gert Olbert, like the English knight, are clearly supernatural, though of a nondescript type. The elf in English A is not to be interpreted too strictly, for the specific elf is not of a sanguinary turn, as these so conspicuously are. He is comparatively innocuous, like the hill-man Young Akin, in another English ballad, who likewise entices away a woman by magical music, but only to make her his wife. But the elf-knight and the rest seem to delight in bloodshed for its own sake; for, as Grundtvig has pointed out, there is no other apparent motive for murder in English A, B, the Norwegian ballads, Danish A, Swedish A, B, or German A-E.[78] This is true again, for one reason or another, of others of the German ballads, of the French, of most of the Italian, and of the Hungarian ballads.

The nearest approach to the Elf-knight, Halewyn, etc., is perhaps Quintalin, in the saga of Samson the Fair. He was son of the miller Galin. Nobody knew who his mother was, but many were of the mind that Galin might have had him of a "goddess," an elf or troll woman, who lived under the mill force. He was a thief, and lay in the woods; was versed in many knave's tricks, and had also acquired agreeable arts. He was a great master of the harp, and would decoy women into the woods with his playing, keep them as long as he liked, and send them home pregnant to their fathers or husbands. A king's daughter, Valentina, is drawn on by his music deep into the woods, but is rescued by a friendly power. Some parts of her dress and ornaments, which she had laid off in her rapid following up of the harping, are afterwards found, with a great quantity of precious things, in the subaqueous cave of Quintalin's mother, who is a complete counterpart to Grendel's, and was probably borrowed from Beówulf.[79] This demi-elf Quintalin is a tame personage by the side of Grendel or of Halewyn. Halewyn does not devour his victims, like Grendel: Quintalin does not even murder his. He allures women with his music to make them serve his lust. We may infer that he would plunder them, for he is a notorious thief. Even two of the oldest Danish ballads, B, C, and again Danish I and Swedish C, make the treacherous knight as lecherous as bloody, and so with German J, K, L, O, P, Q, R, S, and Italian A, B, C, E, F. This trait is wanting in Danish D, where, though traces of the originally demonic nature of the knight remain, the muckle gold of the maids already appears as the motive for the murders. In the later Danish E-H, K, L, and Swedish C, D, the original elf or demon has sunk to a remorseless robber, generally with brothers, sisters, or underlings for accomplices.[80] This is preëminently his character in English C-F, in nearly all the forty Polish ballads, and in the two principal ballads of the German second class, G, H, though English D, German H, and Polish Q retain a trace of the supernatural: the first in the charm by means of which the knight compels the maid to quit her parents, the second in the bloody spring, and the last in the golden mountains. There is nothing that unequivocally marks the robber in the other German ballads of the second class and in those of the third. The question 'Weinst du um deines Vaters Gut?' in I-L, O-S, T-W, is hardly decisive, and only in W and Z is it expressly said that the maid had taken valuable things with her (as in Swedish D, Norwegian A, B, English D-F). J-L, O-S, give us to understand that the lady had lost her honor,[81] but in all the rest, except the anomalous Z, the motive for murder is insufficient.[82]

The woman in these ballads is for the most part nameless, or bears a stock name to which no importance can be attached. Not so with the names of the knight. Most of these are peculiar, and the Northern ones, though superficially of some variety, have yet likeness enough to tempt one to seek for a common original. Grundtvig, with considerable diffidence, suggests Oldemor as a possible ground-form. He conceives that the R of some of the Scandinavian names may be a relic of a foregoing Herr. The initial H would easily come or go. Given such a name as Hollemen (Danish C), we might expect it to give place to Halewyn, which is both a family and a local name in Flanders, if the ballad should pass into the Low Countries from Denmark, a derivation that Grundtvig is far from asserting. So Ulinger, a local appellation, might be substituted for the Ulver of Danish A. Grundtvig, it must be borne in mind, declines to be responsible for the historical correctness of this genealogy, and would be still less willing to undertake an explanation of the name Oldemor.

In place of Oldemor, Professor Sophus Bugge, in a recent article, marked by his characteristic sharp-sightedness and ingenuity, has proposed Hollevern, Holevern, or Olevern as the base-form of all the Northern names for the bloody knight, and he finds in this name a main support for the entirely novel and somewhat startling hypothesis that the ballad we are dealing with is a wild shoot from the story of Judith and Holofernes.[83] His argument, given as briefly as possible, is as follows.

That the Bible story was generally known in the Middle Ages no one would question. It was treated in a literary way by an Anglo-Saxon poet, who was acquainted with the scriptural narrative, and in a popular way by poets who had no direct acquaintance with the original.[84] The source of the story in the ballad must in any case be a tradition many times removed from the biblical story; that much should be changed, much dropped, and much added is only what would be expected.

Beginning the comparison with 'Judith' with this caution, it is first submitted that Holofernes can be recognized in most of the Scandinavian and German names of the knight. The v of the proposed base-form is preserved in Ulver, Halewyn, and probably in the English Elf-knight. It is easy to explain a v's passing over to g, as in Ulinger, Adelger, and especially under the influence of the very common names in -ger. Again, v might easily become b, as in Olbert, or m, as in Hollemen, Olmor; and the initial R of Rulleman, Romor, etc., may have been carried over from a prefixed Herr.[85]

The original name of the heroine has been lost, and yet it is to be noticed that Gert Olbert's mother, in German A, is called Fru Jutte.

The heroine in this same ballad is named Helena (Linnich in F); in others (German C, D, E), Odilia. These are names of saints, and this circumstance may tend to show that the woman in the ballad was originally conceived of as rather a saint than a secular character, though in the course of time the story has so changed that the devout widow who sought out her country's enemy in his own camp has been transformed into a young maid who is enticed from home by a treacherous suitor.

It is an original trait in the ballad that the murderer, as is expressly said in many copies, is from a foreign land. According to an English version (E), he comes from the north, as Holofernes does, "venit Assur ex montibus ab aquilone" (Jud. xvi, 5).

The germ of this outlandish knight's bloodthirstiness is found in the truculent part that Holofernes plays in the Bible, his threats and devastations. That the false suitor appears without companions is in keeping with the ballad style of representation; yet we might find suggestions of the Assyrian's army in the swains, the brothers, the stable-boy, whom the maid falls in with on her way home.

The splendid promises made in many of the ballads might have been developed from the passage where Holofernes, whose bed is described as wrought with purple, gold, and precious stones, says to Judith, Thou shalt be great in the house of Nebuchadnezzar, and thy name shall be named in all the earth (xi, 21).

In many forms of the ballad, especially the Dutch and the German, the maid adorns herself splendidly, as Judith does: she even wears some sort of crown in Dutch A 16, German D 8, as Judith does in x, 3, xvi, 10 (mitram).

In the English D, E, F, the oldest Danish, A, and the Polish versions, the maid, like Judith, leaves her home in the night.

The Piedmontese casté, Italian E 1 [there is a castle in nearly all the Italian ballads, and also in Dutch B], may remind us of Holofernes' castra.

The knight's carrying off the maid, lifting her on to his horse in many copies, may well come from a misunderstanding of elevaverunt in Judith x, 20: Et cum in faciem ejus intendisset, adoravit eum, prosternens se super terram. Et elevaverunt eam servi Holofernis, jubente domino suo.[86]

In German A Gert Olbert and Helena are said to ride three days and nights, and in Danish D the ride is for three days; and we may remember that Judith killed Holofernes the fourth day after her arrival in his camp.

The place in which the pair alight is, according to German G 20, a deep dale, and this agrees with the site of Holofernes' camp in the valley of Bethulia. There is a spring or stream in many of the ballads, and also a spring in the camp, in which Judith bathes (xii, 7).

Most forms of the ballad make the knight, after the halt, inform the maid that she is to die, as many maids have before her in the same place; e.g., German G 7:

'Der Ulinger hat eylff Jungfrawen gehangen, Die zwölfft hat er gefangen.'[87]

This corresponds with the passage in Judith's song (xvi, 6), Dixit se ... infantes meos dare in prædam et virgenes in captivitatem: but it is reasonable to suppose that the ballad follows some version of the Bible words that varied much from the original.

The incident of the maid's lousing and tousing her betrayer's hair, while he lies with his head in her lap, may have come from Judith seizing Holofernes by the hair before she kills him, but the story of Samson and Delilah may have had influence here.

According to many German versions, the murderer grants the maid three cries before she dies. She invokes Jesus, Mary, and her brother. Or she utters three sighs, the first to God the Father, the second to Jesus, the third to her brother. These cries or sighs seem to take the place of Judith's prayer, Confirma me, Domine Deus Israel (xiii, 7), and it may also be well to remember that Holofernes granted Judith, on her request, permission to go out in the night to pray.

The Dutch, Low-German, Scandinavian, and other versions agree in making the woman kill the knight with his own sword, as in Judith. The Dutch and Low-German [also Danish F, Swedish A] have preserved an original trait in making the maid hew off the murderer's head. English and French versions dispose of the knight differently: the maid pushes him into sea or river. Perhaps, in some older form of the story, after the head was cut off, the trunk was pushed into the water: cf. Judith xiii, 10: Abscidit caput ejus et ... evolvit corpus ejus truncum. The words apprehendit comam capitis ejus (xiii, 9) have their parallel in Dutch A, 33: "Zy nam het hoofd al by het haer." The Dutch ballad makes the maid carry the head with her.

"Singing and ringing" she rode through the wood: Judith sings a song of praise to the Lord after her return home.

In English C-F, May Colven comes home before dawn, as Judith does. The Dutch A says, When to her father's gate she came, she blew the horn like a man. Compare Judith xiii, 13: Et dixit Judith a longe custodibus murorum, Aperite portas!

The Dutch text goes on to say that when the father heard the horn he was delighted at his daughter's return: and Judith v, 14, Et factum est, cum audissent viri vocem ejus, vocaverunt presbyteros civitatis.

The conclusion of Dutch A is that there was a banquet held, and the head was set on the table. So Judith causes Holofernes' head to be hung up on the city wall, and after the enemy have been driven off, the Jews hold a feast.

The Icelandic version, though elsewhere much mutilated, has a concluding stanza which certainly belongs to the ballad:

Ása went into a holy cell, Never did she harm to man.

This agrees with the view taken of the heroine of the ballad as a saint, and with the Bible account that Judith lived a chaste widow after her husband's demise.

Danish D is unique in one point. The robber has shown the maid a little knoll, in which the "much gold" of the women he has murdered lies. When she has killed him, the maid says, "I shall have the much gold," and takes as much as she can carry off. Compare with this Holofernes putting Judith into his treasury (xii, 1),[88] her carrying off the conopœum (xiii, 10), and her receiving from the people all Holofernes' gold, silver, clothes, jewels, and furniture, as her share of the plunder of the Assyrian camp (xv, 14). It is, perhaps, a perversion of this circumstance that the robber in German G, H, is refused permission to keep his costly clothes.

English D seems also to have preserved a portion of the primitive story, when it makes the maid tell her parents in the morning all that has happened, whereupon they go with her to the sea-shore to find the robber's body. The foundation for this is surely the Bible account that Judith makes known her act to the elders of the city, and that the Jews go out in the morning and fall on the enemy's camp, in which Holofernes' body is lying. In Swedish C the robber's sisters mourn over his body, and in Judith xiv, 18 the Assyrians break out into loud cries when they learn of Holofernes' death.

In all this it is simply contended that the story of Judith is the remote source of the ballad, and it is conceded that many of the correspondences which have been cited may be accidental. Neither the Latin text of Judith nor any other written treatment of the story of Judith is supposed to have been known to the author of the ballad. The knowledge of its biblical origin being lost, the story would develop itself in its own way, according to the fashion of oral tradition. And so the pious widow into whose hands God gave over his enemies is converted into a fair maid who is enticed by a false knight into a wood, and who kills him in defence of her own life.

A similar transformation can be shown elsewhere in popular poetry. The little Katie of certain northern ballads (see Grundtvig, No 101) is a maid among other maids who prefers death to dishonor; but was originally Saint Catherine, daughter of the king of Egypt, who suffered martyrdom for the faith under the Emperor Maxentius. All the versions of the Halewyn ballad which we possess, even the purest, may be far removed from the primitive, both as to story and as to metrical form. New features would be taken up, and old ones would disappear. One copy has preserved genuine particulars, which another has lost, but Dutch tradition has kept the capital features best of all.[89]

Professor Bugge's argument has been given with an approach to fulness out of a desire to do entire justice to the distinguished author's case, though most of the correspondences adduced by him fail to produce any effect upon my mind.

The case is materially strengthened by the Dutch text C ('Roland'), which was not accessible at the time Bugge's paper was written. The name Roland is not so close to Holofern as Halewyn, but is still within the range of conceivable metamorphosis. The points of coincidence between Dutch C and the story of Judith are these: The woman, first making an elaborate toilet,[90] goes out to seek the man, who is spoken of as surrounded with soldiers; she is challenged on the way; finds Roland lying on his bed, which he proposes she shall share (or lose her life);[91] she cuts off his head, which, after her return home, she exposes from her window.[92]

If this was the original form of the Dutch ballad, and the Dutch ballad is the source from which all the other ballads have come, by processes of dropping, taking up, and transforming, then we may feel compelled to admit that this ballad might be a wild shoot from the story of Judith. Any one who bears in mind the strange changes which stories undergo will hesitate to pronounce this impossible. What poor Ophelia says of us human creatures is even truer of ballads: "We know what we are, but know not what we may be."

But when we consider how much would have to be dropped, how much to be taken up, and how much to be transformed, before the Hebrew "gest" could be converted into the European ballad, we naturally look for a less difficult hypothesis. It is a supposition attended with less difficulty that an independent European tradition existed of a half-human, half-demonic being, who possessed an irresistible power of decoying away young maids, and was wont to kill them after he got them into his hands, but who at last found one who was more than his match, and lost his own life through her craft and courage. A modification of this story is afforded by the large class of Bluebeard tales. The Quintalin story seems to be another variety, with a substitution of lust for bloodthirst. The Dutch ballad may have been affected by some lost ballad of Holofern, and may have taken up some of its features, at least that of carrying home Halewyn's [Roland's] head, which is found in no other version.[93]

A a is translated by Grundtvig in Engelske og skotske Folkeviser, No 37, p. 230: B b in the same, No 36, p. 227: C a, b, D a, b, blended, No 35, p. 221. A, by Rosa Warrens, Schottische V. L. der Vorzeit, No 1, p. 1: Gerhard, p. 15. C b, by Rosa Warrens, No 34, p. 148: Wolf, Halle der Völker, I, 38, Hausschatz, 225. C, D, etc., as in Allingham, p. 244, by Knortz, Lied. u. Rom. Alt-Englands, No 4, p. 14.

A.

a. Buchan's Ballads of the North of Scotland, I, 22. b. Motherwell's MS., p. 563.

1 Fair lady Isabel sits in her bower sewing, Aye as the gowans grow gay There she heard an elf-knight blawing his horn. The first morning in May

2 'If I had yon horn that I hear blawing, And yon elf-knight to sleep in my bosom.'

3 This maiden had scarcely these words spoken, Till in at her window the elf-knight has luppen.

4 'It's a very strange matter, fair maiden,' said he, 'I canna blaw my horn but ye call on me.

5 'But will ye go to yon greenwood side? If ye canna gang, I will cause you to ride.'

6 He leapt on a horse, and she on another, And they rode on to the greenwood together.

7 'Light down, light down, lady Isabel,' said he, 'We are come to the place where ye are to die.'

8 'Hae mercy, hae mercy, kind sir, on me, Till ance my dear father and mother I see.'

9 'Seven king's-daughters here hae I slain, And ye shall be the eight o them.'

10 'O sit down a while, lay your head on my knee, That we may hae some rest before that I die.'

11 She stroakd him sae fast, the nearer he did creep, Wi a sma charm she lulld him fast asleep.

12 Wi his ain sword-belt sae fast as she ban him, Wi his ain dag-durk sae sair as she dang him.

13 'If seven king's-daughters here ye hae slain, Lye ye here, a husband to them a'.'

B.

a. Buchan's MSS, II, fol. 80. b. Buchan's Ballads of the North of Scotland, II, 201. c. Motherwell's MS., p. 561. d. Harris MS., No 19.

1 There came a bird out o a bush, On water for to dine, An sighing sair, says the king's daughter, 'O wae 's this heart o mine!'

2 He 's taen a harp into his hand, He 's harped them all asleep, Except it was the king's daughter, Who one wink couldna get.

3 He 's luppen on his berry-brown steed, Taen 'er on behind himsell, Then baith rede down to that water That they ca Wearie's Well.

4 'Wide in, wide in, my lady fair, No harm shall thee befall; Oft times I've watered my steed Wi the waters o Wearie's Well.'

5 The first step that she stepped in, She stepped to the knee; And sighend says this lady fair, 'This water 's nae for me.'

6 'Wide in, wide in, my lady fair, No harm shall thee befall; Oft times I've watered my steed Wi the water o Wearie's Well.'

7 The next step that she stepped in, She stepped to the middle; 'O,' sighend says this lady fair, I 've wat my gowden girdle.'

8 'Wide in, wide in, my lady fair, No harm shall thee befall; Oft times have I watered my steed Wi the water o Wearie's Well.'

9 The next step that she stepped in, She stepped to the chin; 'O,' sighend says this lady fair, 'They sud gar twa loves twin.'

10 'Seven king's-daughters I 've drownd there, In the water o Wearie's Well, And I'll make you the eight o them, And ring the common bell.'

11 'Since I am standing here,' she says, 'This dowie death to die, One kiss o your comely mouth I'm sure wad comfort me.'

12 He louted him oer his saddle bow, To kiss her cheek and chin; She 's taen him in her arms twa, An thrown him headlong in.

13 'Since seven king's daughters ye 've drowned there, In the water o Wearie's Well, I'll make you bridegroom to them a', An ring the bell mysell.'

14 And aye she warsled, and aye she swam, And she swam to dry lan; She thanked God most cheerfully The dangers she oercame.

C.

a. Herd's MSS, I, 166. b. Herd's Ancient and Modern Scottish Songs, 1776, I, 93. c. Motherwell's Minstrelsy, p. 67, == b "collated with a copy obtained from recitation."

1 False Sir John a wooing came To a maid of beauty fair; May Colven was this lady's name, Her father's only heir.

2 He wood her butt, he wood her ben, He wood her in the ha, Until he got this lady's consent To mount and ride awa.

3 He went down to her father's bower, Where all the steeds did stand, And he 's taken one of the best steeds That was in her father's land.

4 He 's got on and she 's got on, And fast as they could flee, Until they came to a lonesome part, A rock by the side of the sea.

5 'Loup off the steed,' says false Sir John, 'Your bridal bed you see; For I have drowned seven young ladies, The eight one you shall be.

6 'Cast off, cast off, my May Colven, All and your silken gown, For it 's oer good and oer costly To rot in the salt sea foam.

7 'Cast off, cast off, my May Colven, All and your embroiderd shoen, For they 're oer good and oer costly To rot in the salt sea foam.'

8 'O turn you about, O false Sir John, And look to the leaf of the tree, For it never became a gentleman A naked woman to see.'

9 He turnd himself straight round about, To look to the leaf of the tree; So swift as May Colven was To throw him in the sea.

10 'O help, O help, my May Colven, O help, or else I'll drown; I'll take you home to your father's bower, And set you down safe and sound.'

11 'No help, no help, O false Sir John, No help, nor pity thee; Tho seven king's-daughters you have drownd, But the eight shall not be me.'

12 So she went on her father's steed, As swift as she could flee, And she came home to her father's bower Before it was break of day.

13 Up then and spoke the pretty parrot: 'May Colven, where have you been? What has become of false Sir John, That woo'd you so late the streen?

14 'He woo'd you butt, he woo'd you ben, He woo'd you in the ha, Until he got your own consent For to mount and gang awa.'

15 'O hold your tongue, my pretty parrot, Lay not the blame upon me; Your cup shall be of the flowered gold, Your cage of the root of the tree.'

16 Up then spake the king himself, In the bed-chamber where he lay: 'What ails the pretty parrot, That prattles so long or day?'

17 'There came a cat to my cage door, It almost a worried me, And I was calling on May Colven To take the cat from me.'

D.

a. Sharpe's Ballad Book (1823), No 17, p. 45. b. Buchan's Ballads of the North of Scotland, II, 45. c. Motherwell's Minstrelsy, Appendix, p. 21, No. XXIV, one stanza.

1 O heard ye of a bloody knight, Lived in the south country? For he has betrayed eight ladies fair And drowned them in the sea.

2 Then next he went to May Collin, She was her father's heir, The greatest beauty in the land, I solemnly declare.

3 'I am a knight of wealth and might, Of townlands twenty-three; And you'll be lady of them all, If you will go with me.'

4 'Excuse me, then, Sir John,' she says; 'To wed I am too young; Without I have my parents' leave, With you I darena gang.'

5 'Your parents' leave you soon shall have, In that they will agree; For I have made a solemn vow This night you'll go with me.'

6 From below his arm he pulled a charm, And stuck it in her sleeve, And he has made her go with him, Without her parents' leave.

7 Of gold and silver she has got With her twelve hundred pound, And the swiftest steed her father had She has taen to ride upon.

8 So privily they went along, They made no stop or stay, Till they came to the fatal place That they call Bunion Bay.

9 It being in a lonely place, And no house there was nigh, The fatal rocks were long and steep, And none could hear her cry.

10 'Light down,' he said, 'fair May Collin, Light down and speak with me, For here I've drowned eight ladies fair, And the ninth one you shall be.'

11 'Is this your bowers and lofty towers, So beautiful and gay? Or is it for my gold,' she said, 'You take my life away?'

12 'Strip off,' he says, 'thy jewels fine, So costly and so brave, For they are too costly and too fine To throw in the sea wave.'

13 'Take all I have my life to save, O good Sir John, I pray; Let it neer be said you killed a maid Upon her wedding day.'

14 'Strip off,' he says, 'thy Holland smock, That's bordered with the lawn, For it's too costly and too fine To rot in the sea sand.'

15 'O turn about, Sir John,' she said, 'Your back about to me, For it never was comely for a man A naked woman to see.'

16 But as he turned him round about, She threw him in the sea, Saying, 'Lie you there, you false Sir John, Where you thought to lay me.

17 'O lie you there, you traitor false, Where you thought to lay me, For though you stripped me to the skin, Your clothes you've got with thee.'

18 Her jewels fine she did put on, So costly, rich and brave, And then with speed she mounts his steed, So well she did behave.

19 That lady fair being void of fear, Her steed being swift and free, And she has reached her father's gate Before the clock struck three.

20 Then first she called the stable groom, He was her waiting man; Soon as he heard his lady's voice He stood with cap in hand.

21 'Where have you been, fair May Collin? Who owns this dapple grey?' 'It is a found one,' she replied, 'That I got on the way.'

22 Then out bespoke the wily parrot Unto fair May Collin: 'What have you done with false Sir John, That went with you yestreen?'

23 'O hold your tongue, my pretty parrot, And talk no more to me, And where you had a meal a day O now you shall have three.'

24 Then up bespoke her father dear, From his chamber where he lay: 'What aileth thee, my pretty Poll, That you chat so long or day?'

25 'The cat she came to my cage-door, The thief I could not see, And I called to fair May Collin, To take the cat from me.'

26 Then first she told her father dear The deed that she had done, And next she told her mother dear Concerning false Sir John.

27 'If this be true, fair May Collin, That you have told to me, Before I either eat or drink This false Sir John I'll see.'

28 Away they went with one consent, At dawning of the day, Until they came to Carline Sands, And there his body lay.

29 His body tall, by that great fall, By the waves tossed to and fro, The diamond ring that he had on Was broke in pieces two.

30 And they have taken up his corpse To yonder pleasant green, And there they have buried false Sir John, For fear he should be seen.

E.

J. H. Dixon, Ancient Poems, Ballads, and Songs of the Peasantry of England, p. 74.

1 An outlandish knight came from the north lands, And he came a-wooing to me; He told me he'd take me unto the north lands, And there he would marry me.

2 'Come, fetch me some of your father's gold, And some of your mother's fee, And two of the best nags out of the stable, Where they stand thirty and three.'

3 She fetched him some of her father's gold, And some of her mother's fee, And two of the best nags out of the stable, Where they stood thirty and three.

4 She mounted her on her milk-white steed, He on the dapple grey; They rode till they came unto the sea-side, Three hours before it was day.

5 'Light off, light off thy milk-white steed, And deliver it unto me; Six pretty maids have I drowned here, And thou the seventh shalt be.

6 'Pull off, pull off thy silken gown, And deliver it unto me; Methinks it looks too rich and too gay To rot in the salt sea.

7 'Pull off, pull off thy silken stays, And deliver them unto me; Methinks they are too fine and gay To rot in the salt sea.

8 'Pull off, pull off thy Holland smock, And deliver it unto me; Methinks it looks too rich and gay To rot in the salt sea.'

9 'If I must pull off my Holland smock, Pray turn thy back unto me; For it is not fitting that such a ruffian A naked woman should see.'

10 He turned his back towards her And viewed the leaves so green; She catched him round the middle so small, And tumbled him into the stream.

11 He dropped high and he dropped low, Until he came to the side; 'Catch hold of my hand, my pretty maiden, And I will make you my bride.'

12 'Lie there, lie there, you false-hearted man, Lie there instead of me; Six pretty maids have you drowned here, And the seventh has drowned thee.'

13 She mounted on her milk-white steed, And led the dapple grey; She rode till she came to her own father's hall, Three hours before it was day.

14 The parrot being in the window so high, Hearing the lady, did say, 'I'm afraid that some ruffian has led you astray, That you have tarried so long away.'

15 'Don't prittle nor prattle, my pretty parrot, Nor tell no tales of me; Thy cage shall be made of the glittering gold, Although it is made of a tree.'

16 The king being in the chamber so high, And hearing the parrot, did say, 'What ails you, what ails you, my pretty parrot, That you prattle so long before day?'

17 'It's no laughing matter,' the parrot did say, 'That so loudly I call unto thee, For the cats have got into the window so high, And I'm afraid they will have me.'

18 'Well turned, well turned, my pretty parrot, Well turned, well turned for me; Thy cage shall be made of the glittering gold, And the door of the best ivory.'

F.

Roxburghe Ballads, III, 449.

1 'Go fetch me some of your father's gold, And some of your mother's fee, And I'll carry you into the north land, And there I'll marry thee.'

2 She fetchd him some of her father's gold, And some of her mother's fee; She carried him into the stable, Where horses stood thirty and three.

3 She leapd on a milk-white steed, And he on a dapple-grey; They rode til they came to a fair river's side, Three hours before it was day.

4 'O light, O light, you lady gay, O light with speed, I say, For six knight's daughters have I drowned here, And you the seventh must be.'

5 'Go fetch the sickle, to crop the nettle That grows so near the brim, For fear it should tangle my golden locks, Or freckle my milk-white skin.'

6 He fetchd the sickle, to crop the nettle That grows so near the brim, And with all the strength that pretty Polly had She pushd the false knight in.

7 'Swim on, swim on, thou false knight, And there bewail thy doom, For I don't think thy cloathing too good To lie in a watry tomb.'

8 She leaped on her milk-white steed, She led the dapple grey; She rid till she came to her father's house, Three hours before it was day.

9 'Who knocked so loudly at the ring?' The parrot he did say; 'O where have you been, my pretty Polly, All this long summer's day?'

10 'O hold your tongue, parrot, Tell you no tales of me; Your cage shall be made of beaten gold, Which is now made of a tree.'

11 O then bespoke her father dear, As he on his bed did lay: 'O what is the matter, my parrot, That you speak before it is day?'

12 'The cat's at my cage, master, And sorely frighted me, And I calld down my Polly To take the cat away.'

A.

Burden. Song xix of Forbes's 'Cantus,' Aberdeen, 1682, 3d ed., has, as pointed out by Motherwell, Minstrelsy, p. lx, nearly the same burden: The gowans are gay, The first morning of May. And again, a song in the Tea Table Miscellany, as remarked by Buchan, There gowans are gay, The first morning of May: p. 404 of the 12th ed., London, 1763.

b.

No doubt furnished to Motherwell by Buchan, as a considerable number of ballads in this part of his MS. seem to have been.

3². Then in.

8¹. kind sir, said she.

10². That we may some rest before I die.

11¹. the near.

13². to them ilk ane.

1 is given by Motherwell, Minstrelsy, p. lx, but apparently to improve metre and secure rhyme, thus:

Lady Isabel sits in her bouir sewing, She heard an elf-knight his horn blowing.

B b.

Buchan's printed copy differs from the manuscript very slightly, except in spelling.

4³, 6³. Aft times hae I.

5³. And sighing sair says.

7³, 9³. And sighing says.

14². Till she swam.

14³. Then thanked.

14⁴. she'd.

c.

Like A b, derived by Motherwell from Buchan.

4¹, 6¹, 8¹. wade in, wade in.

14³. And thanked.

Dixon, Scottish Traditional Versions of Ancient Ballads, p. 63, printing B from the manuscript, makes one or two trivial changes.

d

is only this fragment.

4³ Mony a time I rade wi my brown foal The water o Wearie's Wells.

'Leave aff, leave aff your gey mantle, It's a' gowd but the hem; Leave aff, leave [aff], it's far owre gude To weet i the saut see faem.'

5 She wade in, an he rade in, Till it took her to the knee; Wi sighin said that lady gay 'Sic wadin's no for me.'

* * * * *

9 He rade in, and she wade in, Till it took her to the chin; Wi sighin said that ladie gay 'I'll wade nae farer in.'

10³ 'Sax king's dochters I hae drowned, An the seventh you sall be.'

* * * * *

13 'Lie you there, you fause young man, Where you thought to lay me.'

C b.

The printed copy follows the manuscript with only very trifling variations: Colvin for Colven;

13¹, up then spak;

16⁴, ere day;

17², almost worried.

c.

2^{1, 2}. he's courted.

2³. Till once he got.

Between 2 and 3 is inserted:

She's gane to her father's coffers, Where all his money lay, And she's taken the red, and she's left the white, And so lightly as she tripped away.

3¹ She's gane down to her father's stable,

³ And she's taken the best, and she's left the warst.

4 He rode on, and she rode on, They rode a long summer's day, Until they came to a broad river, An arm of a lonesome sea.

5^{3, 4} 'For it's seven king's daughters I have drowned here, And the eighth I'll out make with thee.'

6^{1, 2} 'Cast off, cast off your silks so fine, And lay them on a stone.'

7^{1, 2, 3} 'Cast off, cast off your holland smock, And lay it on this stone, For it's too fine.' ...

9^{3, 4} She's twined her arms about his waist, And thrown him into

10^{1, 2} 'O hold a grip of me, May Colvin, For fear that I should'

³ father's gates

⁴ and safely I'll set you down.

11 'O lie you there, thou false Sir John, O lie you there,' said she, 'For you lie not in a caulder bed Than the ane you intended for me.'

12³. father's gates.

⁴. At the breaking of the day.

13⁴. yestreen.

Between 13 and 14 is inserted:

Up then spake the pretty parrot, In the bonnie cage where it lay: 'O what hae ye done with the false Sir John, That he behind you does stay?'

15^{3, 4} 'Your cage will be made of the beaten gold, And the spakes of ivorie.'

17^{1, 2} 'It was a cat cam ... I thought 't would have' ...

D a.

2¹. Colin.

b.

Buchan's copy makes many slight changes which are not noticed here.

1². west countrie.

After 1 is inserted:

All ladies of a gude account As ever yet were known; This traitor was a baron knight, They calld him fause Sir John.

After 2:

'Thou art the darling of my heart, I say, fair May Colvin, So far excells thy beauties great That ever I hae seen.'

3². Hae towers, towns twenty three.

7². five hunder.

7³. The best an steed.

8³. fatal end.

8⁴. Binyan's Bay.

12². rich and rare.

12⁴. sea ware.

After 12:

Then aff she's taen her jewels fine, And thus she made her moan: 'Hae mercy on a virgin young, I pray you, gude Sir John.'

'Cast aff, cast aff, fair May Colvin, Your gown and petticoat, For they're too costly and too fine To rot by the sea rock.'

13⁴. Before her.

14⁴. to toss.

18³. her steed.

23³. What hast thou made o fause.

28³. Charlestown sands. Sharps thinks Carline Sands means Carlinseugh Sands on the coast of Forfarshire.

After 30:

Ye ladies a', wherever you be, That read this mournful song, I pray you mind on May Colvin, And think on fause Sir John.

Aff they've taen his jewels fine, To keep in memory; And sae I end my mournful sang And fatal tragedy.

c.

Motherwell's one stanza is:

O heard ye eer o a bloody knight That livd in the west countrie? For he has stown seven ladies fair, And drownd them a' in the sea.

E.

3². of the.

17². But so.

FOOTNOTES:

[24] 'The Elfin Knight' begins very much like A, but perhaps has borrowed its opening stanzas from this ballad. See page 13.

[25] The second stanza, which describes the harping, occurs again in 'Glenkindie' (st. 6).

[26] Perhaps the change from wood, A, to water, B-F, was made under the influence of some Merman ballad, or by admixture with such a ballad; e.g., 'Nøkkens Svig,' Grundtvig, No 39. In this (A) the nix entices a king's daughter away from a dance, sets her on his horse, and rides with her over the heath to a wild water, into which she sinks. It is also quite among possibilities that there was originally an English nix ballad, in which the king's daughter saved herself by some artifice, not, of course, such as is employed in B-F, but like that in A, or otherwise. Maid Heiemo, in Landstad, No 39, kills a nix with "one of her small knives." Had she put him to sleep with a charm, and killed him with his own knife, as Lady Isabel does, there would have been nothing to shock credibility in the story.

Aytoun, Ballads of Scotland, I, 219, 2d ed., hastily pronounces Buchan's ballad not authentic, "being made up of stanzas borrowed from versions of 'Burd Helen' ['Child Waters']." There are, indeed, three successive steps into the water in both ballads, but Aytoun should have bethought himself how natural and how common it is for a passage to slip from one ballad into another, when the circumstances of the story are the same; and in some such cases no one can say where the verses that are common originally belonged. Here, indeed, as Grundtvig remarks, IV, 7, note*, it may well be that the verses in question belonged originally to 'Burd Helen,' and were adopted (but in the processes of tradition) into 'The Water of Wearie's Well;' for it must be admitted that the transaction in the water is not a happy conception in the latter, since it shocks probability that the woman should be able to swim ashore, and the man not.

[27] "This ballad appears modern, from a great many expressions, but yet I am certain that it is old: the present copy came from the housekeeper at Methven." Note by Sharpe, in Laing's ed. of the Ballad Book, 1880, p. 130, xvii. Motherwell, in his Minstrelsy, p. lxx, n. 24, says that he had seen a stall ballad as early as 1749, entitled 'The Western Tragedy,' which perfectly agreed with Sharpe's copy. But in his Note-Book, p. 5 (about 1826-7), Motherwell says, "The best copy of May Colean with which I have met occurs in a stall copy printed about thirty years ago [should we then read 1799 instead of 1749?], under the title of 'The Western Tragedy.' I have subsequently seen a posterior reprint of this stall copy under this title, 'The Historical Ballad of May Collean.' In Mr. Sharpe's Ballad Book, the same copy, wanting only one stanza, is given."

[28] According to the variation given by Willems, and adopted by Hoffmann, Halewijn's son came to meet her, tied her horse to a tree, and bade her to sit down by him and loose her hair. For every hair she undid she dropped a tear. But it will presently be seen not only that the time has not come for them to sit down, but that Halewijn's bidding her undo her hair (to no purpose) is a perversion of her offering to "red" his, to get him into her power, an offer which she makes in the German and Scandinavian ballads, where also there is good reason for her tears, but none as yet here.

[29] J. W. Wolf, Deutsche Märchen u. Sagen, No 29, p. 143, gives the story according to B, apparently from a ballad like Snellaert's. So Luise v. Ploennies, Reiseerinnerungen aus Belgien, p. 38.

Halewyn makes his appearance again in the Flemish ballad, 'Halewyn en het kleyne Kind,' Coussemaker, No 46, p. 149; Poésies populaires de la France, vol. I. A boy of seven years has shot one of Halewyn's rabbits, and is for this condemned to be hanged on the highest tree in the park. The father makes great offers for his ransom, but in vain. On the first step of the ladder the child looks back for his mother, on the second for his father, on the third for his brother, on the fourth for his sister, each of whom successively arrives and is told that delay would have cost him his life. It will presently be seen that there is a resemblance here to German ballads (G-X, Z).

[30] "La chanson de Halewyn, telle à peu près que la donnent Willems, Snellaert et de Coussemaker, se vend encore sur le marché de Bruges. Quoiqu'elle porte pour titre Halewyn, jamais notre pièce n'a été connue ici sous ce nom. Le nom de Halewijn, Alewijn ou Alwin ... est réservé au héros de la pièce suivante" [Mi Adel en Hir Alewijn]. Lootens et Feys, p. 66. "Il est a regretter que Willems et de Coussemaker n'aient pas jugé à propos de donner cette pièce telle que le peuple l'a conservée; on serait sans aucun doute en possession de variantes remarquables, et les lacunes qui existent dans notre version n'eussent pas manqué d'être com blées. Il est bon d'insister sur la remarque faite à la suite de la chanson, qu'à Bruges et dans beaucoup de localités de la Flandre, elle n'est connue que sous le titre de Roland. Ajoutons que notre texte appartient au dernier siècle." L. et F., 295.

[31] So in 'Liebe ohne Stand,' one of the mixed forms of the German ballad, Wunderhorn, Erk I, 41, Crecelius, I, 36,

Und als es nun kam an den dritten Tag, Da gingen die Pfeiffen und Trommeln an.

[32] E.g., the wonderland in A 2-6, and the strict watch kept over the lady in 7-10 are repeated in 'Ribold og Guldborg,' Grundtvig, 82, B 2-7, 8-11, and in 'Den trofaste Jomfru,' ib. 249, A 3-6, 7-10. The watching in A, B, C and the proffered gifts of C, D, F are found in 'Nøkkens Svig,' Grundtvig, 39, A, B, 12-18. The disguise in A 11-14, the rest in the wood with the knight's head in the lady's lap, A 16, 27, B 11, 21, D 14, 24, E 11, 21, etc., recur in Ribold, B 12-14, L 9, 10, M 19, 20, N 11, 13, P 12, 13. These resemblances, naturally, are not limited to the Danish copies.

[33] So the princess in Asbjörnsen og Moe, N. Folkeeventyr, p. 153. Cf. Campbell's Tales of the West Highlands, III, 209; IV, 282, 283.

[34] The binding and waking, with these words, are found also in a made-up text of 'Frændehævn,' Grundtvig, No 4, C 51-53, but certainly borrowed from some copy of 'Kvindemorderen.'

[35] All the German versions appear to have been originally in the two-line stanza.

[36] The copies with this title in Simrock, No 6, p. 15, and in Scherer's Jungbrunnen, No 5 A, and his Deutsche V. L., 1851, p. 349, are compounded from various texts.

[37] Both D and E have attached to them this final stanza:

'Odilia, why are thy shoes so red?' 'It is three doves that I shot dead.'

This is a well-known commonplace in tragic ballads; and Grundtvig suggests that this stanza was the occasion of the story taking the turn which we find in ballads of the third class.

[38] One scarcely knows whether this bribe is an imperfect reminiscence of splendid promises which the knight makes, e.g., in the Danish ballads, or a shifting from the maid to the knight of the gold which the elsewhere opulent or well-to-do maid gets together while the knight is preparing to set forth; or simply one of those extravagances which so often make their appearance in later versions of ballads.

[39] The number eleven is remarkably constant in the German ballads, being found in G, H, J-L, N-W; it is also the number in Swedish B. Eight is the favorite number in the North, and occurs in Danish A-D, H-L, Swedish A, C, Norwegian G, H; again in German I. German M, X, Danish F, have ten; German A, B, Danish E, Norwegian I, have nine; German C, D, seven; Danish G has nineteen. French A, B have fourteen, fifteen, Italian ballads still higher numbers: A, B, C, thirty-six, D, fifty-two, E, thirty-three, F, three hundred and three.

[40] This stroke of realism fails only in M, N, R, of this second class.

[41] Apparently to a Ribold ballad, of which no other trace has been found in German. See further on in this volume.

[42]

13 'Ach du schöne junkfraw fein, Du pfalzgrävin, du kaiserin! Der Adelger hat sich vor ailf getödt, Du wirst die zwölft, das sei dir gsait.

15 'So bitt mich nit, du junkfraw fein, So bitt mich nit, du herzigs ein!'

The liebkosung of this murder-reeking Adelger, o'ersized with coagulate gore, is admirably horrible.

[43] Nimmersatt (All-begehrend) as interpreted by Meinert, not Adelger.

[44] Verses which recur, nearly, not only in Y 17-19, W 27, 28, but elsewhere, as in a copy of 'Graf Friedrich,' Erk's Liederhort, p. 41, No 15, st. 19.

[45] There is no sense in two doves. The single dove one may suppose to be the spirit of the last victim. We shall find the eleven appearing as doves in Q. There is no occasion to regard the dove here as a Waldminne (Vilmar, Handbüchlein für Freunde des deutschen Volkslieds, p. 57). Cf. the nightingale (and two nightingales) in the Danish 'Redselille og Medelvold:' see 'Leesome Brand,' further on in this volume.

[46] This ballad has become, in Tübingen, a children's game, called 'Bertha im Wald.' The three cries are preserved in verse, and very nearly as in J, M. The game concludes by the robber smothering Bertha. Meier, Deutsche Kinder-Reime, No 439.

[47] K, or the editor, seeks to avoid the difficulty by taking the last line from the knight, and reading, "Mit Blut war er umronnen," an emendation not according with the simplicity of ballads. Another Swabian copy, Meier, p. 301, note, strophe 6, has:

'Wir müssen zu selbigem Bronnen Wo Wasser und Blut heraus ronnen.'

[48] The last verses are these, and not very much worse than the rest:

Mein Bruder ist ein Jägersmann, Der alle Thierlein schiessen kann; Er hatt' ein zweischneidiges Schwerte, Und stach es dem Falschen ins Herze.

Ihr Mädchen alle insgemein, Lasst euch doch diess zur Warnung sein, Und geht doch mit keinem so falschen In einen so finsteren Walde.

My brother is a hunting man, And all the small game shoot he can; He had a sword with edges two, And ran the heart of the false man through

Ye maidens now in general, Let this be warning to you all; With man so false you never should Go to so very dark a wood.

[49] So in Rochholz, Schweizer Sagen, No 14, I, 23, a man who had killed eleven maids would, if he could have made up the number twelve, have been able to pass through walls and mouseholes. Again, a certain robber in Jutland, who had devoured eight children's hearts, would have acquired the power of flying could he but have secured one more. Grundtvig, D. g. F. IV, 16, note.

[50] What will those who are so troubled about cork-heeled shoon in 'Sir Patrick Spens' say to the fire-arms in L, N, S?

[51] A variety of W, cited in Schlesische Volkslieder, p. 26, has,

'Ach Ulbrich, Ulbrich, Halsemann, Halsemann, Lass du mich nur drei Gale schrei'n!'

Grundtvig, assuming that the name is Ulbrich Halsemann, would account for the second and superfluous character here [found also in W] by a divarication of Ulrich Halsemann into Ulrich and Halsemann (Hanslein). Ansar, "bisher unverständlicher Vorname des Ritters Uleraich" in Y (Meinert), would equally well yield Hanslein. Might not Halsemann possibly be an equivalent of Halsherr?

[52] And in 'Der Mutter Fluch,' Meinert, p. 246, a ballad with which Y agrees in the first two and last four stanzas.

[53] There is a dove in Z, but Z, as has been said, presents traits of all three classes.

[54]

'Da lyge, feyns Lybchen, unndt fawle, Meyn jungk Herze muss trawren.'

Nicolai, vv 35, 36,

'Da liege, du Häuptchen, und faule, Kein Reuter wird dir nachtrauern.'

Simrock, vv 35, 36,

are evidently derived from the apostrophe to the murderer's head in I, W, Y.

Stolz Syburg is the hero of a very different ballad, from the Münster region, Reifferscheid, No 16, p. 32 (also No 17, and Simrock, No 9, p. 23, 'Stolz Heinrich'). And from this the name, in consequence of a remote resemblance in the story, may have been taken up by the Rhine ballad, though it has contributed nothing more. Margaret, a king's daughter, is wiled away by a splendid description of Stolz Syburg's opulence. When they have gone a long way, he tells her that he has nothing but a barren heath. She stabs herself at his feet.

[55] 'Wassermans Braut,' Meinert, p. 77; 'Die unglückliche Braut,' Hoffmann u. Richter, Schlesische V. L., p. 6, No. 2; 'Königs Töchterlein,' Erk u. Irmer, vi, 6, No 4; 'Der Wassermann,' Erk's Liederhort, p. 50, No 17. ('Die Nixenbraut,' "Norddeutschland," Zuccalmaglio, p. 192, No 92, seems to be Meinert's copy written over.)

[56] The remarkable Norwegian ballad of the 'Wassermanns Brant' group, The Nix and Heiemo, Landstad, No 39, p. 350, has not been unaffected by the one we are now occupied with. There is even a verbal contact between stanza 19,

'Heiemo tenkte með sjave seg: Tru mine smá knivar 'ki hjelper meg?'

and Norwegian F, stanza 9, cited by Grundtvig, IV, 4,

Lengji stó Gullbjör, hó tenkte mæ seg: 'Kann inkje mí' rúninne hjelpe meg?'

[57] Kolberg's b, h, k, v, x, bb, cc, hh, kk, ll, nn, xx, yy, zz, consist of only one or two initial stanzas, containing no important variation. His aaa, a fragment of six stanzas, Pauli, p. 147, No 6, Wojcicki, II, 169, though it begins like the rest, sounds like a different ballad.

The ballad in Wojcicki, I, 38, is allied with the one we are engaged with, and the two fragments on p. 36, p. 37 with both this and that.

[58] Anne in R, LL, and Kolberg's h: Mary in I, U, II: Ursula, N: both Catherine and Alice, AA. John is found in all but N, where there is a nameless seigneur.

[59] They are expressly said to go off in a carriage in I, O, Q, T, BB, DD, FF. Still, in I, John says, "Let the black horse have something to carry under us." In O, T, FF, the horses have a presentiment of evil to their mistress, and refuse to stir.

[60] One version of 'The Two Sisters,' Q, has the same answer:

'I did not put you in with the design Just for to pull you out again.'

st. 9.

This might be called a formula in Polish ballads: something of the kind occurs three times in X, four times in B, five times in P; in other ballads also. In Q 25, Catherine clutches the river bank, and John pushes away her hands. Compare 'The Two Sisters,' F 9, further on in this volume.

[61] L, L*, M, N, as already said, confuse the two catastrophes. John says, in N, "Do you see that broad river? I will measure its depth by throwing you in." We may assume that he was as good as his word. But Ursula made her way home through woods and forests, weeping her eyes out on the way. Kind souls dug a grave for her. The conclusion of M is absurd, but need not be particularized. G has a passage of the sternest theology. While Catherine is struggling in the water, her father comes by. She cries to him to save her. He says, "My dear Catherine, you have loved pleasure too much. Lord Jesus grant you drown!" Her mother appears, and makes the same reply to her daughter's appeal. There are stall-copy terminal morals to many of the ballads.

[62] N 1, "A lord came riding from his estate to a neighbor."

[63] The place is high above the water in R 10, 11, as in English D 9, 29, C 4.

[64] BB 6, "My mother said that I had seen you; she will watch me closely," may be an accidental coincidence with Danish A 7-9, B 6-8, etc.

[65] The second, and more valuable, volume of Waldau's B. G. I have found it impossible to obtain. Reifferscheid cites the ballad at p. 166.

[66] A few silly verses follow in the original, in which Thomas treats what he had said as a jest. These are properly rejected by Talvj as a spurious appendage.

[67]

'De achte de soll Helena sin, De achte de most he sölwer sin.'

German A b 13.

[68] Another version of this double ballad, but much corrupted in the second part, was known to Gérard de Nerval. See Les Filles du Feu, Œuvres complètes, V, 132.

[69] So far there is agreement in 'La Fille du Prince,' Paymaigre, No 32, p. 106; Poésies pop. de la France, MS., III, fol. 133.

[70] The Asturian romance communicated in two copies by Amador de los Rios to Jahrbuch für rom. u. eng. Literatur, III, 285, No 2, and the Portuguese 'Romance de Romeirinha,' Braga, Romanceiro, No 9, p. 24, 'A Romeira,' Almeida-Garrett, III, 11, are not parallels, though they have been cited as such.

[71] Magyar Népköltési Gyüjtemény. Uj Folyam, szerkesztik és kiadják Arany László és Gyulai Pál. Collection of Magyar Popular Poetry, New Series, Pest, 1872, 2 vols. Aigner, has blended Nos 4 and 3 (C, A) in 'Martin und Aennchen,' Ungarische Volksdichtungen, p. 170, and has translated No 1 (E), at p. 120, 'Molnár Anna,' in each case obscuring or omitting one or two traits which are important for a comparative view.

[72] Very little remains of the artifice in Polish A. The idea seems to be that the girl pretends to be curious about the sword in order to get it into her hands. But the whole story is told in ten stanzas.

[73] I accept and repeat Grundtvig's views as to the relation of the three forms of the story. And with regard to the history of the ballad generally, this is but one of many cases in which much or most of the work had been done to my hand in Danmarks gamle Folkeviser.

[74] Memering was required by his adversary to swear that he knew not of the sword Adelring, and took his oath that he knew of nothing but the hilt being above ground, which was accepted as satisfactory. Presently he pulls Adelring out of the ground, into which he had thrust the blade, and, being accused of perjury, triumphantly rejoins that he had sworn that he knew of nothing but the hilt being above ground. Dietrich does the same in his duel with Sigurd Swain.

[75] Magyar A is entirely peculiar. Apparently the man lays his head in the woman's lap that he may know, by the falling of her tears, when she has disobeyed his command not to look into the tree. This is like 'Bluebeard,' and rather subtle for a ballad.

[76] 'Child Waters,' 'The Fair Flower of Northumberland.'

[77] The murderer has a horn in Swedish C, D, as also in the Dutch Halewyn and the German A, B, C, E, and the horn may be of magical power, but it is not distinctly described as such.

[78] The scenery of the halting-place in the wood—the bloody streams in Danish A, B, D, H, L, K, the blood-girt spring in German H, J, K, L, O, P, Q—is also, to say the least, suggestive of something horribly uncanny. These are undoubtedly ancient features, though the spring, as the Danish editor observes, has no longer any significancy in the German ballads, because in all of them the previous victims are said to have been hanged.

[79] The saga in Björner's Nordiska Kämpadater, c. 5-7.

[80] Danish E, I, L, and even A, make the knight suggest to the lady that she should get her gold together while he is saddling his horse; but this is a commonplace found in other cases of elopement, and by itself warrants no conclusion as to the knight's rapacity. See 'Samson,' Grundtvig, No 6, C 5; 'Ribold og Guldborg,' No 82, C 13, E 14, etc.; 'Redselille og Medelvold,' No 271, A 21, B 20; 272, Bilag 3, st. 8; 270, 18, etc.

[81] So perhaps a Polish ballad in Wojcicki, I, 38, akin to the other John and Katie ballads.

[82] It is well known that in the Middle Ages the blood of children or of virgins was reputed a specific for leprosy (see, e.g., Cassel in the Weimar Jahrbücher, I, 408.) Some have thought to find in this fact an explanation of the murders in these ballads and in the Bluebeard stories, and, according to Rochholz, this theory has been adopted into popular tradition in the Aargau. So far as this cycle of ballads is concerned, there is as much ground for holding that the blood was wanted to cure leprosy as for believing that the gold was wanted for aurum potabile.

[83] Det philologisk-historiske Samfunds Mindeskrift i Anledning af dets femogtyveaarige Virksomhed, 1854-79, Bidrag til den nordiske Balladedigtnings Historie, p. 75 ff.

[84] Bugge cites the Old German Judith, Müllenhoff u. Scherer, Denkmäler, 2d ed., No 37, p. 105, to show how the Bible story became modified under a popular treatment.

[85] Holefern might doubtless pass into Halewyn, but there is not the slightest need of Holefern to account for Halewyn. Halewyn, besides being a well-known local and family appellation, is found in two other Dutch ballads, one of which (Lootens and Feys, p. 66, No 38; Hoffmann, p. 46, No 11) has no kind of connection with the present, and is no more likely to have derived the name from this than this from that. It shall not be denied that Adelger, Hilsinger, Rullemann, Reimvord might have sprung from or have been suggested by Holofern, under the influence of familiar terminations, but it may be remarked that Hildebrand, Ravengaard, Valdemar, Rosmer, if they had occurred in any version, would have occasioned no greater difficulty.

[86] The Old German poem makes Holofernes kindle with desire for Judith the moment he sees her, and he bids his men bring her to his tent. They lift her up and bring her in.

[87] It should be observed that these words are from the dove's warning.

[88] Simply because he had no other apartment at his disposition. Shall we add, the Polish mother putting her daughter into the "new room," in which she kept her valuables?

[89] Bugge holds that the ballad was derived by the Scandinavians from the Germans, more precisely by the Danes from a Low German form. This, he says, would follow from what he has maintained above, and he finds support for his view in many particular traits of Norse copies. Thus, one of the Norwegian names for the murderer is Alemarken. The first three syllables are very near to the Danish Oldemor; but -ken seems to be the German diminutive suffix, and can only be explained by the ballad having come from Germany.

[90] This toilet derives importance solely from the agreement with Judith x, 3: for the rest it is entirely in the ballad style. Compare the toilets in 'Hafsfrun,' Afzelius, No 92, III, 148, Arwidsson, No 150, II, 320, Wigström, Folkdiktning, No 2, p. 11, Landstad, No 55, p. 494: 'Guldsmedens Datter,' Grundtvig, No. 245, IV, 481 ff, Wigström, ib., No 18, p. 37, Landstad, No 43, p. 437: Torkilds Riim, Lyngbye, Færøiske Qvæder, 534, 535, Afzelius, III, 202: 'Stolts Karin,' Arwidsson, No 63, I, 388: 'Liti Kerstis hevn,' Landstad, No 67, p. 559 == 'Lord Thomas and Fair Annet': in many of which there is a gold crown. There is a man's toilet in Grundtvig, No 207, IV, 201.

[91] Bugge would naturally have seen the Assyrian scouts that Judith falls in with (x, 11) in Roland's father, mother, and brother, all of whom hail the maid as she is making for Roland's quarters (C 30-38); still more "Holofernes jacebat in lecto" (xiii, 4), in "Roland die op zijn bedde lag," C 39.

[92] Judith xiv, 1: "Suspendite caput hoc super muros nostros." The cutting off and bringing home of the head, as need hardly be said, is not of itself remarkable, being found everywhere from David to Beówulf, and from Beówulf to 'Sir Andrew Barton.'

[93] Dutch B, which, as before said, has been completely rewritten, makes the comparison with Holofernes:

34 'Ik heb van't leven hem beroofd, in mynen schoot heb ik zyn hoofd, hy is als Holofernes gelooft.'

37 Zy reed dan voort als Judith wys, zoo regt nae haer vaders paleis, daer zy wierd ingehaeld met eer en prys.

5
GIL BRENTON

A. a. 'Gil Brenton,' Jamieson Brown MS., fol. 34. b. 'Chil Brenton,' William Tytler Brown MS., No 3.

B. 'Cospatrick,' Scott's Minstrelsy, II, 117 (1802).

C. 'We were sisters, we were seven,' Cromek's Remains of Nithsdale and Galloway Song, p. 207.

D. 'Lord Dingwall,' Buchan's Ballads of the North of Scotland, I, 204.

E. Elizabeth Cochrane's song-book, No 112.

F. a. 'Lord Brangwill,' Motherwell's MSS, p. 219. b. 'Lord Bengwill,' Motherwell's Minstrelsy, Appendix, p. xvi.

G. 'Bothwell,' Herd's Ancient and Modern Scots Songs, p. 244.

H. Kinloch MSS, V, 335.

Eight copies of this ballad are extant, four of them hitherto unpublished. A a, No 16 in the Jamieson-Brown MS., is one of twenty ballads written down from the recitation of Mrs. Brown of Falkland, by her nephew, Robert Scott, in 1783, or shortly before. From these twenty thirteen were selected, and, having first been revised by Mrs. Brown, were sent, with two others, to William Tytler in the year just mentioned. William Tytler's MS. has disappeared, but a list of the ballads which it contained, with the first stanza of each, is given by Dr Anderson, in Nichols's Illustrations of the Literary History of the Eighteenth Century, VII, 176. B is the 'Cospatrick' of the Border Minstrelsy, described by Scott as taken down from the recitation of a lady (known to be Miss Christian Rutherford, his mother's sister) "with some stanzas transferred from Herd's copy, and some readings adopted from a copy in Mrs Brown's manuscript under the title of Child Brenton," that is, from A b. C purports to be one of a considerable number of pieces, "copied from the recital of a peasant-woman of Galloway, upwards of ninety years of age." Though overlaid with verses of Cunningham's making (of which forty or fifty may be excided in one mass) and though retouched almost everywhere, both the groundwork of the story and some genuine lines remain unimpaired. The omission of most of the passage referred to, and the restoration of the stanza form, will give us, perhaps, a thing of shreds and patches, but still a ballad as near to genuine as some in Percy's Reliques or even Scott's Minstrelsy. D and F are (the former presumably, the second certainly) from recitation of the first quarter of this century. E is one of the few ballads in Elizabeth Cochrane's song-book, and probably of the first half of the last century. G, the earliest printed form of the ballad, appeared in Herd's first collection, in the year 1769. H was taken down from recitation by the late Dr Hill Burton in his youth.

A, B, and C agree in these points: A bride, not being a maid, looks forward with alarm to her wedding night, and induces her bower-woman to take her place for the nonce. The imposture is detected by the bridegroom, through the agency of magical blankets, sheets, and pillows, A; or of blankets, bed, sheet, and sword, B; or simply of the Billie Blin, C. (The sword is probably an editorial insertion; and Jamieson, Illustrations of Northern Antiquities, p. 343, doubts, but without sufficient reason, the Billie Blin.) The bridegroom has recourse to his mother, who demands an explanation of the bride, and elicits a confession that she had once upon a time encountered a young man in a wood, who subjected her to violence. Before they parted, he gave her certain tokens, which he enjoined her to be very careful of, a lock of his hair, a string of beads, a gold ring, and a knife. B omits the knife, and C the beads. The mother goes back to her son, and asks what he had done with the tokens she had charged him never to part with. He owns that he had presented them to a lady, one whom he would now give all his possessions to have for his wife. The lady of the greenwood is identified by the tokens.

A, C, and D make the mother set a golden chair for the bride, in which none but a maid can sit, D [no leal maid will sit till bidden, C]. In D the chair is declined; in C, taken without bidding; in A the significance of the chair has been lost. E, F, G employ no kind of test of maidenhood,—the bride frankly avows that she is with child to another man; and D, as well as E, F, G, omits the substitution of the chambermaid. The tokens in D are a chain, a ring, and three locks of hair; in E, gloves and a ring; in F, G, green gloves, a ring, and three locks [plaits] of hair. Only the ring remains in H.

"This ballad," says Motherwell (1827), "is very popular, and is known to reciters under a variety of names. I have heard it called Lord Bangwell, Bengwill, Dingwall, Brengwill, etc., and The Seven Sisters, or the Leaves of Lind." He adds: "There is an unedited ballad in Scotland, which is a nearer approximation to the Danish song, inasmuch as the substitution of the maiden sister for the real bride constitutes a prominent feature of the tale."[94] (Minstrelsy, Introduction, lxix²¹ and xc.)

Scott remarks that Cospatrick[95] "was the designation of the Earl of Dunbar, in the days of Wallace and Bruce." Mr Macmath informs me that it is in use at the present day in the families of the Earl of Home and of Dunbar of Mochrum, Bart, who, among others, claim descent from the ancient earls of Dunbar and March. The story of the ballad might, of course, attach itself to any person prominent in the region where the ballad was known.

Swedish. Three Swedish versions of this ballad were given by Afzelius: A, 'Riddar Olle' in 50 two-line stanzas, II, 217; B, 19 two-line stanzas, II, 59; C, 19 two-line stanzas, II, 56: No 33, I, 175-182 of Bergström's edition. Besides these, there are two fragments in Cavallius and Stephens's unprinted collection: D, 6 stanzas; E, 7 stanzas, the latter printed in Grundtvig, V, 307.[96] All these were obtained from recitation in the present century. A comes nearest to our A, B. Like Scottish B, it seems to have been compounded from several copies. Sir Olof betrothed Ingalilla, and carried her home for the spousal, wearing a red gold crown and a wan cheek. Ingalilla gave birth to twin-boys. Olof had a maid who resembled Ingalilla completely, and who, upon Ingalilla's entreaty, consented to play the part of bride on the morrow. Dressed in Ingalilla's clothes, blue kirtle, green jacket, etc., and wearing five gold rings and a gold crown, the maid rode to church, with Ingalilla at her back, and her beauty was admired by all as she came and went. But outside of the church were a good many musicians; and one of these piped out, "God-a-mercy, Ingalilla, no maid art thou!" Ingalilla threw into the piper's hand something which made him change his tune. He was an old drunken fellow, and no one need mind what he sang. After five days of drinking, they took the bride to her chamber, not without force. Ingalilla bore the light before her, and helped put her to bed; then lay down herself. Olof had over him a fur rug, which could talk as well as he, and it called out,

'Hear me, Sir Olof, hear what I say; Thou hast taken a strumpet, and missed a may.'

And Olof,

'Hear, little Inga, sweetheart,' he said; 'What didst thou get for thy maidenhead?'[97]

Inga explained. Her father was a strange sort of man, and built her bower by the sea-strand, where all the king's courtiers took ship. Nine had broken in, and one had robbed her of her honor. He had given her an embroidered sark, a blue kirtle, green jacket, black mantle, gloves, five gold rings, a red gold crown, a golden harp, and a silver-mounted knife, which she now wishes in the youngster's body. The conclusion is abruptly told in two stanzas. Olof bids Inga not to talk so, for he is father of her children. He embraces her and gives her a queen's crown and name. B has the same story, omitting the incident of the musician. C has preserved this circumstance, but has lost both the substitution of the waiting-woman for the bride and the magical coverlet. D has also lost these important features of the original story; E has retained them.

Danish. 'Brud ikke Mø,' Grundtvig, No 274, V, 304. There are two old versions (more properly only one, so close is the agreement), and a third from recent tradition. This last, Grundtvig's C, from Jutland, 1856, seems to be of Swedish origin, and, like Swedish C, D, wants the talking coverlet, though it has kept the other material feature, that of the substitution. A is found in two manuscripts, one of the sixteenth and the other of the seventeenth century. B is the well-known 'Ingefred og Gudrune,' or 'Herr Samsings Nattergale,' Syv, IV, No 62, Danske Viser, No 194, translated in Jamieson's Illustrations, p. 340, and by Prior, III, 347. A later form of B, from recent recitation, 1868, is given in Kristensen's Jydske Folkeviser, I, No 53.

The story in A runs thus: Sølverlad and Vendelrod [Ingefred and Gudrune] were sitting together, and Vendelrod wept sorely. Sølverlad asked her sister the reason, and was told there was cause. Would she be bride one night? Vendelrod would give her wedding clothes and all her outfit. But Sølverlad asked for bridegroom too, and Vendelrod would not give up her bridegroom, happen what might. She went to church and was married to Samsing. On the way from church they met a spaeman [B, shepherd], who warned Vendelrod that Samsing had some nightingales that could tell him whether he had married a maid or no. The sisters turned aside and changed clothes, but could not change cheeks! Sølverlad was conducted to Samsing's house and placed on the bride bench. An unlucky jester called out, "Methinks this is not Vendelrod!" but a gold ring adroitly thrown into his bosom opened his eyes still wider, and made him pretend he had meant nothing. The supposed bride is put to bed. Samsing invokes his nightingales: "Have I a maid or no?" They reply, it is a maid that lies in the bed, but Vendelrod stands on the floor. Samsing asks Vendelrod why she avoided her bed, and she answers: her father lived on the strand; her bower was broken into by a large company of men, and one of them robbed her of her honor. In this case there are no tokens for evidence. Samsing owns immediately that he and his men had broken into the bower, and Vendelrod's agony is over.

Some of the usual tokens, gold harp, sark, shoes, and silver-mounted knife, are found in the later C. Danish D is but a single initial stanza.

Besides Sølverlad and Vendelrod, there is a considerable number of Danish ballads characterized by the feature that a bride is not a maid, and most or all of these have similarities to 'Gil Brenton.' 'Hr. Find og Vendelrod,' Grundtvig, No 275, has even the talking blanket (sometimes misunderstood to be a bed-board). In this piece there is no substitution. Vendelrod gives birth to children, and the news makes Find jump over the table. Still he puts the question mildly, who is the father, and recognizes that he is the man, upon hearing the story of the bower on the strand, and seeing half a gold ring which Vendelrod had received "for her honor."

In 'Ingelilles Bryllup,' Grundtvig, No 276, Blidelild is induced to take Ingelild's place by the promise that she shall marry Ingelild's brother. Hr. Magnus asks her why she is so sad, and says he knows she is not a maid. Blidelild says, "Since you know so much, I will tell you more," and relates Ingelild's adventure,—how she had gone out to the river, and nine knights came riding by, etc. [so A; in B and C we have the bower on the strand, as before]. Hr. Magnus avows that he was the ninth, who stayed when eight rode away. Blidelild begs that he will allow her to go and look for some lost rings, and uses the opportunity to send back Ingelild in her stead.

Various other Scandinavian ballads have more or less of the story of those which have been mentioned. In the Danish 'Brud i Vaande,' Grundtvig, No 277, a bride is taken with untimely pains while being "brought home." The question asked in several of the Scottish ballads, whether the saddle is uncomfortable, occurs in A, B; the bower that was forced by eight swains and a knight in A, C, D, F; the gifts in A, B, F; and an express acknowledgment of the act of violence by the bridegroom in A, B, D. We find all of these traits except the first in the corresponding Swedish ballad 'Herr Äster och Fröken Sissa,' Afzelius, No 38, new ed., No 32,¹; the saddle and broken bower in Swedish D, Grundtvig, No 277, Bilag 1; only the saddle in Swedish F, Grundtvig, No. 277, Bilag 3, and C, Arwidsson, No 132; the saddle and gifts in Icelandic A, B, C, D, E, Grundtvig, No 277, Bilag 5, 6, 7, 8.

'Peder og Malfred,' Grundtvig, No 278, in four versions, the oldest from a manuscript of 1630, represents Sir Peter as riding away from home about a month after his marriage, and meeting a woman who informs him that there is a birth in his house. He returns, and asks who is the father. Sir Peter satisfies himself that he is the man by identifying the gifts, in A, B, C, D; and in A, B we have also the bower by the strand.

In 'Oluf og Ellinsborg,' Grundtvig, No 279, A, B, C, one of the queen's ladies is habitually sad, and is pressed by her lover to account for this. She endeavors to put him off with fictitious reasons, but finally nerves herself to tell the truth: she was walking by herself in her orchard, when five knights came riding by, and one was the cause of her grief. Oluf owns it was all his doing. A Swedish ballad, remarkably close to the Danish, from a manuscript of the date 1572 (the oldest Danish version is also from a manuscript of the 16th century), is 'Riddar Lage och Stolts Elensborg,' Arwidsson, No 56.

'Iver Hr. Jonsøn,' Grundtvig, No 280, in five versions, the oldest of the 16th century, exhibits a lady as fearing the arrival of her lover's ship, and sending her mother to meet him, while she takes to her bed. Immediately upon her betrothed's entering her chamber, she abruptly discloses the cause of her trouble. Eight men had broken into her bower on the strand, and the ninth deprived her of her honor. Iver Hr. Jonsøn, with as little delay, confesses that he was the culprit, and makes prompt arrangements for the wedding.

There is another series of ballads, represented by 'Leesome Brand' in English, and by 'Redselille og Medelvold' in Danish, which describe a young woman, who is on the point of becoming a mother, as compelled to go off on horseback with her lover, and suffering from the ride. We find the question, whether the saddle is too narrow or the way too long, in the Danish 'Bolde Hr. Nilaus' Løn,' Grundtvig, 270, 'Redselille og Medelvold,' Grundtvig, 271 C, D, E, I, K, L, M, P, Q, V, Y, and the Norwegian versions, A, D, E, F, of 'Sønnens Sorg,' Grundtvig, 272, Bilag 1, 4, 5, 6.[98] The gifts also occur in Grundtvig's 271 A, Z, and Norwegian D, Bilag 9.

Perhaps no set of incidents is repeated so often in northern ballads as the forcing of the bower on the strand, the giving of keepsakes, the self-identification of the ravisher through these, and his full and hearty reparation. All or some of these traits are found in many ballads besides those belonging to the groups here spoken of: as 'Hildebrand og Hilde,' E, I, Grundtvig, No 83, and Norwegian A, III, 857; 'Guldsmedens Datter,' Grundtvig, 245, and its Swedish counterpart at p. 481 of the preface to the same, and in Eva Wigström's Folkdiktning, p. 37, No 18; 'Liden Kirstins Dans,' Grundtvig, 263 (translated by Prior, 112), and Norwegian B, C, Bilag 2, 3; 'Jomfruens Harpeslæt,' Grundtvig, 265 (translated by Jamieson, 'Illustrations,' p. 382, Prior, 123, Buchanan, p. 6), and Swedish D, Bilag 2, Swedish A, Afzelius, 81. So Landstad, 42, 45; Arwidsson, 141; Grundtvig, 37 G; 38 A, D; Kristensen, I, No 95, II, No 28 A, C.

A very pretty Norwegian tale has for the talisman a stepping-stone at the side of the bed: Asbjørnsen og Moe, No 29, 'Vesle Aase Gaasepige,' Dasent, 2d ed., p. 478. An English prince had pictures taken of all the handsomest princesses, to pick his bride by. When the chosen one arrived, Aase the goose-girl informed her that the stone at the bedside knew everything and told the prince; so if she felt uneasy on any account, she must not step on it. The princess begged Aase to take her place till the prince was fast asleep, and then they would change. When Aase came and put her foot on the stone, the prince asked, "Who is it that is stepping into my bed?" "A maid clean and pure," answered the stone. By and by the princess came and took Aase's place. When they were getting up in the morning, the prince asked again, "Who is it stepping out of my bed?" "One that has had three children," said the stone. The prince sent his first choice away, and tried a second. Aase faithfully warned her, and she had cause for heeding the advice. When Aase stepped in, the stone said it was a maid clean and pure; when the princess stepped out, the stone said it was one that had had six children. The prince was longer in hitting on a third choice. Aase took the bride's place once more, but this time the prince put a ring on her finger, which was so tight that she could not get it off, for he saw that all was not right. In the morning, when he asked, "Who is stepping out of my bed?" the stone answered, "One that has had nine children." Then the prince asked the stone to clear up the mystery, and it revealed how the princesses had put little Aase in their place. The prince went straight to Aase to see if she had the ring. She had tied a rag over her finger, pretending she had cut it; but the prince soon had the rag off, recognized his ring, and Aase got the prince, for the good reason that so it was to be.

The artifice of substituting waiting-woman for bride has been thought to be derived from the romance of Tristan, in which Brangwain [Brengain, Brangaene] sacrifices herself for Isold: Scott's 'Sir Tristrem,' ii, 54; Gottfried V. Strassburg, xviii, ed. Bechstein. Grundtvig truly remarks that a borrowing by the romance from the popular ballad is as probable a supposition as the converse; and that, even should we grant the name of the hero of the ballad to be a reminiscence of that of Isold's attendant (e. g. Brangwill of Brangwain), nothing follows as to the priority of the romance in respect to this passage. A similar artifice is employed in the ballad of 'Torkild Trundeson,' Danske Viser, 200 (translated by Prior, 100); Afzelius, II, 86, from the Danish; Arwidsson, 36. The resemblance is close to 'Ingelilles Bryllup,' C, Grundtvig, 276. See also, further on, 'The Twa Knights.'

The Billie Blin presents himself in at least four Scottish ballads: 'Gil Brenton,' C; 'Willie's Lady;' one version of 'Young Beichan;' two of 'The Knight and Shepherd's Daughter;' and also in the English ballad of 'King Arthur and the King of Cornwall,' here under the slightly disfigured name of Burlow Beanie.[99] In all he is a serviceable household demon; of a decidedly benignant disposition in the first four, and, though a loathly fiend with seven heads in the last, very obedient and useful when once thoroughly subdued. He is clearly of the same nature as the Dutch belewitte and German bilwiz, characterized by Grimm as a friendly domestic genius, penas, guote holde; and the names are actually associated in a passage cited by Grimm from Voet: "De illis quos nostrates appellant beeldwit et blinde belien, a quibus nocturna visa videri atque ex iis arcana revelari putant."[100] Though the etymology of these words is not unencumbered with difficulty, bil seems to point to a just and kindly-tempered being. Bilvís, in the seventh book of Saxo Grammaticus, is an aged counsellor whose bent is to make peace, while his brother Bölvís, a blind man, is a strife-breeder and mischief-maker.[101] The same opposition of Bil and Böl apparently occurs in the Edda, Grímnismál, 47⁴, where Bil-eygr and Böl-eygr (Bal-eygr) are appellatives of Odin, which may signify mild-eyed and evil-eyed. Bölvís is found again in the Hrômund's saga, under the description of 'Blind the Bad,' and 'the Carl Blind whose name was Bavís.' But much of this saga is taken from the story of Helgi Hundingslayer; and Blind the Bad in the saga is only Sæmund's Blindr inn bölvísi,—the blind man whose baleful wit sees through the disguise of Helgi, and all but betrays the rash hero to his enemies; that is, Odin in his malicious mood (Bölverkr), who will presently be seen in the ballad of 'Earl Brand' masking as Old Carl Hood, "aye for ill and never for good." Originally and properly, perhaps, only the bad member of this mythical pair is blind; but it would not be at all strange that later tradition, which confuses and degrades so much in the old mythology, should transfer blindness to the good-natured one, and give rise to the anomalous Billie Blind. See Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie, 1879, I, 391 ff; Uhland, Zur Geschichte der Dichtung u. Sage, III, 132 ff, VII, 229; Schmeller, Bayerisches Wörterbuch, II, 1037 ff, ed. 1877; Van den Bergh, Woordenboek der nederlandsche Mythologie, 12.

It has been suggested to me that "the Haleigh throw" in E 6 is a corruption of the High Leith Row, a street in Edinburgh. I have not as yet been able to obtain information of such a street.

D is translated by Grundtvig, Engelske og skotske Folkeviser, No 40, p. 262.

A.

a. Jamieson-Brown MS., No 16, fol. 34. b. William Tytler's Brown MS., No 3. From the recitation of Mrs Brown of Falkland, 1783, Aberdeenshire.

1 Gil Brenton has sent oer the fame, He's woo'd a wife an brought her hame.

2 Full sevenscore o ships came her wi, The lady by the greenwood tree.

3 There was twal an twal wi beer an wine, An twal an twal wi muskadine:

4 An twall an twall wi bouted flowr, An twall an twall wi paramour:

5 An twall an twall wi baken bread, An twall an twall wi the goud sae red.

6 Sweet Willy was a widow's son, An at her stirrup-foot he did run.

7 An she was dressd i the finest pa, But ay she loot the tears down fa.

8 An she was deckd wi the fairest flowrs, But ay she loot the tears down pour.

9 'O is there water i your shee? Or does the win blaw i your glee?

10 'Or are you mourning i your meed That eer you left your mither gueede?

11 'Or are ye mourning i your tide That ever ye was Gil Brenton's bride?'

12 'The[re] is nae water i my shee, Nor does the win blaw i my glee:

13 'Nor am I mourning i my tide That eer I was Gil Brenton's bride:

14 'But I am mourning i my meed That ever I left my mither gueede.

15 'But, bonny boy, tell to me What is the customs o your country.'

16 'The customs o't, my dame,' he says, 'Will ill a gentle lady please.

17 'Seven king's daughters has our king wedded, An seven king's daughters has our king bedded.

18 'But he's cutted the paps frae their breast-bane, An sent them mourning hame again.

19 'But whan you come to the palace yate, His mither a golden chair will set.

20 'An be you maid or be you nane, O sit you there till the day be dane.

21 'An gin you're sure that you are a maid, Ye may gang safely to his bed.

22 'But gin o that you be na sure, Then hire some woman o youre bowr.'

23 O whan she came to the palace yate, His mither a golden chair did set.

24 An was she maid or was she nane, She sat in it till the day was dane.

25 An she's calld on her bowr woman, That waiting was her bowr within.

26 'Five hundred pound, maid, I'll gi to the, An sleep this night wi the king for me.'

27 Whan bells was rung, an mass was sung, An a' man unto bed was gone,

28 Gil Brenton an the bonny maid Intill ae chamber they were laid.

29 'O speak to me, blankets, an speak to me, sheets, An speak to me, cods, that under me sleeps;

30 'Is this a maid that I ha wedded? Is this a maid that I ha bedded?'

31 'It's nae a maid that you ha wedded, But it's a maid that you ha bedded.

32 'Your lady's in her bigly bowr, An for you she drees mony sharp showr.'

33 O he has taen him thro the ha, And on his mither he did ca.

34 'I am the most unhappy man That ever was in christend lan.

35 'I woo'd a maiden meek an mild, An I've marryed a woman great wi child.'

36 'O stay, my son, intill this ha, An sport you wi your merry men a'.

37 'An I'll gang to yon painted bowr, An see how't fares wi yon base whore.'

38 The auld queen she was stark an strang; She gard the door flee aff the ban.

39 The auld queen she was stark an steer; She gard the door lye i the fleer.

40 'O is your bairn to laird or loon? Or is it to your father's groom?'

41 'My bairn's na to laird or loon, Nor is it to my father's groom.

42 'But hear me, mither, on my knee, An my hard wierd I'll tell to thee.

43 'O we were sisters, sisters seven, We was the fairest under heaven.

44 'We had nae mair for our seven years wark But to shape an suc the king's son a sark.

45 'O it fell on a Saturday's afternoon, Whan a' our langsome wark was dane,

46 'We keist the cavils us amang, To see which shoud to the greenwood gang.

47 'Ohone, alas! for I was youngest, An ay my wierd it was the hardest.

48 'The cavil it did on me fa, Which was the cause of a' my wae.

49 'For to the greenwood I must gae, To pu the nut but an the slae;

50 'To pu the red rose an the thyme, To strew my mother's bowr and mine.

51 'I had na pu'd a flowr but ane, Till by there came a jelly hind greeme,

52 'Wi high-colld hose an laigh-colld shoone, An he 'peard to be some kingis son.

53 'An be I maid or be I nane, He kept me there till the day was dane.

54 'An be I maid or be I nae, He kept me there till the close of day.

55 'He gae me a lock of yallow hair, An bade me keep it for ever mair.

56 'He gae me a carket o gude black beads, An bade me keep them against my needs.

57 'He gae to me a gay gold ring, An bade me ke[e]p it aboon a' thing.

58 'He gae to me a little pen-kniffe, An bade me keep it as my life.'

59 'What did you wi these tokens rare That ye got frae that young man there?'

60 'O bring that coffer hear to me, And a' the tokens ye sal see.'

61 An ay she ranked, an ay she flang, Till a' the tokens came till her han.

62 'O stay here, daughter, your bowr within, Till I gae parley wi my son.'

63 O she has taen her thro the ha, An on her son began to ca.

64 'What did you wi that gay gold ring I bade you keep aboon a' thing?

65 'What did you wi that little pen-kniffe I bade you keep while you had life?

66 'What did you wi that yallow hair I bade you keep for ever mair?

67 'What did you wi that good black beeds I bade you keep against your needs?'

68 'I gae them to a lady gay I met i the greenwood on a day.

69 'An I would gi a' my father's lan, I had that lady my yates within.

70 'I would gi a' my ha's an towrs, I had that bright burd i my bowrs.'

71 'O son, keep still your father's lan; You hae that lady your yates within.

72 'An keep you still your ha's an towrs; You hae that bright burd i your bowrs.'

73 Now or a month was come an gone, This lady bare a bonny young son.

74 An it was well written on his breast-bane 'Gil Brenton is my father's name.'

B.

Scott's Minstrelsy, II, 117, ed. 1802. Ed. 1830, III, 263. Partly from the recitation of Miss Christian Rutherford.

1 Cospatrick has sent oer the faem, Cospatrick brought his ladye hame.

2 And fourscore ships have come her wi, The ladye by the grenewood tree.

3 There were twal and twal wi baken bread, And twal and twal wi gowd sae reid:

4 And twal and twal wi bouted flour, And twal and twal wi the paramour.

5 Sweet Willy was a widow's son, And at her stirrup he did run.

6 And she was clad in the finest pall, But aye she let the tears down fall.

7 'O is your saddle set awrye? Or rides your steed for you owre high?

8 'Or are you mourning in your tide That you suld be Cospatrick's bride?'

9 'I am not mourning at this tide That I suld be Cospatrick's bride;

10 'But I am sorrowing in my mood That I suld leave my mother good.

11 'But, gentle boy, come tell to me, What is the custom of thy countrye?'

12 'The custom thereof, my dame,' he says, 'Will ill a gentle laydye please.

13 'Seven king's daughters has our lord wedded, And seven king's daughters has our lord bedded;

14 'But he's cutted their breasts frae their breast bane, And sent them mourning hame again.

15 'Yet, gin you're sure that you're a maid, Ye may gae safely to his bed;

16 'But gif o that ye be na sure, Then hire some damsell o your bour.'

17 The ladye's calld her bour-maiden, That waiting was into her train;

18 'Five thousand merks I will gie thee, To sleep this night with my lord for me.'

19 When bells were rung, and mass was sayne, And a' men unto bed were gane,

20 Cospatrick and the bonny maid, Into ae chamber they were laid.

21 'Now, speak to me, blankets, and speak to me, bed, And speak, thou sheet, inchanted web;

22 'And speak up, my bonny brown sword, that winna lie, Is this a true maiden that lies by me?'

23 'It is not a maid that you hae wedded, But it is a maid that you hae bedded.

24 'It is a liel maiden that lies by thee, But not the maiden that it should be.'

25 O wrathfully he left the bed, And wrathfully his claiths on did.

26 And he has taen him thro the ha, And on his mother he did ca.

27 'I am the most unhappy man That ever was in christen land!

28 'I courted a maiden meik and mild, And I hae gotten naething but a woman wi child.'

29 'O stay, my son, into this ha, And sport ye wi your merrymen a';

30 'And I will to the secret bour, To see how it fares wi your paramour.'

31 The carline she was stark and sture; She aff the hinges dang the dure.

32 'O is your bairn to laird or loun? Or is it to your father's groom?'

33 'O hear me, mother, on my knee, Till my sad story I tell to thee.

34 'O we were sisters, sisters seven, We were the fairest under heaven.

35 'It fell on a summer's afternoon, When a' our toilsome task was done,

36 'We cast the kavils us amang, To see which suld to the grene-wood gang.

37 'O hon, alas! for I was youngest, And aye my wierd it was the hardest.

38 'The kavil it on me did fa, Whilk was the cause of a' my woe.

39 'For to the grene-wood I maun gae, To pu the red rose and the slae;

40 'To pu the red rose and the thyme, To deck my mother's bour and mine.

41 'I hadna pu'd a flower but ane, When by there came a gallant hende,

42 'Wi high-colld hose and laigh-colld shoon, And he seemd to be sum king's son.

43 'And be I maid or be I nae, He kept me there till the close o day.

44 'And be I maid or be I nane, He kept me there till the day was done.

45 'He gae me a lock o his yellow hair, And bade me keep it ever mair.

46 'He gae me a carknet o bonny beads, And bade me keep it against my needs.

47 'He gae to me a gay gold ring, And bade me keep it abune a' thing.'

48 'What did ye wi the tokens rare That ye gat frae that gallant there?'

49 'O bring that coffer unto me, And a' the tokens ye sall see.'

50 'Now stay, daughter, your bour within, While I gae parley wi my son.'

51 O she has taen her thro the ha, And on her son began to ca.

52 'What did you wi the bonny beads I bade ye keep against your needs?

53 'What did you wi the gay gowd ring I bade ye keep abune a' thing?'

54 'I gae them a' to a ladye gay I met in grene-wood on a day.

55 'But I wad gie a' my halls and tours, I had that ladye within my bours.

56 'But I wad gie my very life, I had that ladye to my wife.'

57 'Now keep, my son, your ha's and tours; Ye have that bright burd in your bours.

58 'And keep, my son, your very life; Ye have that ladye to your wife.'

59 Now or a month was cum and gane, The ladye bore a bonny son.

60 And 't was weel written on his breast-bane, 'Cospatrick is my father's name.'

61 'O rowe my ladye in satin and silk, And wash my son in the morning milk.'

C.