Chapter 5 of 8 · 26315 words · ~132 min read

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).

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.# 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.

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.'

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.

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.

#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.#

1^1, #c#, i' th' North: #d#, in the.

3^1. #c#, This knight.

5^1. #a#, #b#, #c#, #d#, The youngest sister.

7^1. #b#, #d#, The youngest that same. #c#, that very same.

7^2. #a#, with this young knight.

9^2. #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._

11^2. #c#, I'll marry. #d#, I will.

12^1. #c# _omits_ in love.

12^2. #b#, #c#, #d#, three questions.

14^1. #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.

18^2. #d#, the woman.

19^1. #c#, those.

20. #a#, #b# _omit_ truly.

21^1. #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) Kadeu, 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).

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 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

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.'

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.'

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.'

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.'

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.'

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.'

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.'

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.'

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.

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. 9^1, 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.#

3^2. hae made.

9^1. askd _should perhaps be_ left, _or_ gave, _as in_ #K^1#, #L^1#.

#E.#

_Burden_^2, _in MS._, 1, blown her; 2, 3, blawn her; 4, blawn my.

2^1, blow;

2^2, and a.

#H.#

1^1. He speaks, _in the margin of MS_.

_Burden_^1, _time in margin_.

5^1. Maid speaks, _in margin_.

#I.#

_Not divided regularly into stanzas in the MS._

4^2. needlewark _in margin_.

10^1. shin? _in margin_.

#L.#

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

[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.

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.

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.'

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.

[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."

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,