Book VI

, ch. xviii, 57-90.

[95] Scott says: "Cospatrick, Comes Patricius;" but Cos- (Gos-)patrick is apparently Servant of Patrick, like Gil-patrick (Kil-patrick). Mr Macmath suggests to me that Gil Brenton may have originally been Gil-brandon, which seems very likely. See Notes and Queries, 5th S., x, 443.

[96] A fragment in Rancken's 'Några Prof af Folksång,' p. 14 f, belongs not to 'Riddar Olle,' as there said, but to 'Herr Äster och Fröken Sissa,' though the burden is 'Riddar Olof.' Other verses, at p. 16, might belong to either. 'Riddar Ola,' E. Wigström's Folkdiktning, p. 37, No 18, belongs with the Danish 'Guldsmedens Datter,' Grundtvig No 245.

[97] The inquiry seems to refer to the morning gift. "Die Morgengabe ist ein Geschenk des Mannes als Zeichen der Liebe (in signum amoris), für die Uebergabe der vollen Schönheit (in honore pulchritudinis) und der Jungfräulichkeit (pretium virginitatis)." Weinhold, Die deutschen Frauen in dem Mittelalter, S. 270.

[98] And again, "Is it the saddle, your horse, or your true-love?" almost exactly as in our #B#, #E#, #F#, Grundtvig, 40 #C#, #E#, #F#, Afzelius, 91, Landstad, 45, 52. So the Scottish ballad, 'The Cruel Brother,' #B# 15 f.

[99] The auld belly-blind man in 'Earl Richard,' 44^3, 45^1, Kinloch's A. S. Ballads, p. 15, retains the bare name; and Belly Blind, or Billie Blin, is the Scotch name for the game of Blindman's-buff.

[100] Gisbertus Voetius, De Miraculis, Disput., II, 1018. Cited also by Schmeller, Bayerisches Wörterbuch, from J. Prætorius's Alectryomantia, p. 3.

[101] Merlin, in Layamon, V. 17130 ff (as pointed out by Grundtvig, I, 274), says that his mind is balewise, "mi gæst is bæliwis," and that he is not disposed to gladness, mirth, or good words.

6

WILLIE'S LADY

#a.# 'Willie's Lady,' Fraser-Tytler MS.

#b.# 'Sweet Willy,' Jamieson-Brown MS., No 15, fol. 33.

#a#, 'Willie's Lady,' was No 1 in the manuscript of fifteen ballads furnished William Tytler by Mrs Brown in 1783, and having been written down a little later than #b# may be regarded as a revised copy. This manuscript, as remarked under No 5, is not now in the possession of the Fraser-Tytler family, having often been most liberally lent, and, probably, at last not returned. But a transcript had been made by the grandfather of the present family of two of the pieces contained in it, and 'Willie's Lady' is one of these two.

Lewis had access to William Tytler's copy, and, having regulated the rhymes, filled out a gap, dropped the passage about the girdle, and made other changes to his taste, printed the ballad in 1801 as No 56 of his Tales of Wonder. The next year Scott gave the "ancient copy, never before published," "in its native simplicity, as taken from Mrs Brown of Falkland's MS.,"--William Tytler's,--in Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, II, 27, but not with literal accuracy. Jamieson, in 1806, gave 'Sweet Willy,' almost exactly according to the text of his Brown manuscript, in an appendix to the second volume of his collection, p. 367, and at p. 175 of the same volume, a reconstruction of the ballad which might have been spared.

#b# lacks altogether the passage which makes proffer of the cup, #a#, stanzas 5-11, and substitutes at that place the girdle of #a# 21-28. The woodbine in #a# 36, 41, is also wanting, and the concluding stanza. A deficiency both in matter and rhyme at #a# 32, is supplied by #b# 25, 26, but not happily:

'An do you to your mither then, An bid her come to your boy's christnen;

'For dear's the boy he's been to you: Then notice well what she shall do.'

Again, the transition in #a#, from st. 33 to st. 34, is abrupt even for a ballad, and #b# introduces here four stanzas narrating the execution of the Billy Blind's injunctions, and ending,

And notic'd well what she did say,

whereby we are prepared for the witch's exclamations.[102]

Danish versions of this ballad are numerous: #A-I#, 'Hustru og Mands Moder' ['Fostermoder,' 'Stifmoder'], Grundtvig, No 84, II, 404 ff; #J-T#, 'Hustru og Mands Moder,' Kristensen, II, 111 ff, No 35: #U-X#,'Barselkvinden,' Kristensen, I, 201 ff, No 74; #Y#, 'Hustru og Slegfred,' Grundtvig, No 85, II, 448 ff: in all twenty-five, but many of Kristensen's copies are fragments. Grundtvig's 84 #A#, #B#, and 85 #a# are from manuscripts of the sixteenth century. 84 #F-I# and several repetitions of 85 are of the seventeenth. Grundtvig's 84 #C#, #D#, #E#, and all Kristensen's versions, are from recent oral tradition. Some of these, though taken down since 1870, are wonderfully well preserved.

The Danish ballads divide into two classes, principally distinguished by their employing or not employing of the artifice of wax children. (There is but one of these in #N#, #R#, Kristensen's #E#, #I#, II, 116, 122, and in the oldest Swedish ballad, as in the Scottish: but children in Scandinavian ballads are mostly born in pairs.) Of the former class, to which our only known copy belongs, are #F-I#, #N-T#, #X# (Grundtvig, 84 #F-I#, Kristensen, II, No 35, #E-L#, I, No 74 #D#). #N# and #I# furnish, perhaps, the most consistent story, which, in the former, runs thus: Sir Peter married Ellen (elsewhere Mettelille, Kirstin, Tidelil, Ingerlil), and gave her in charge to his mother, a formidable witch, and, as appears from #F#, violently opposed to the match. The first night of her marriage Ellen conceived twins. She wrapped up her head in her cloak and paid a visit to her mother-in-law, to ask how long women go with child. The answer was,

'Forty weeks went Mary with Christ, And so each Danish woman must.

'Forty weeks I went with mine, But eight years shalt thou go with thine.'

The forty weeks had passed, and Ellen began to long for relief. Sir Peter besought aid of his sister Ingerlin. If I help your young bride, she said, I must be traitor to my mother. Sir Peter insisted, and Ingerlin moulded a fine child of wax,[103] wrapped it in linen, and exhibited it to her mother, who, supposing that her arts had been baffled, burst out into exclamations of astonishment. She had thought she could twist a rope out of flying sand, lay sun and moon flat on the earth with a single word, turn the whole world round about! She had thought all the house was spell-bound, except the spot where the young wife's chest stood, the chest of red rowan, which nothing can bewitch! The chest was instantly taken away, and Ellen's bed moved to the place it had occupied; and no sooner was this done than Ellen gave birth to two children.

In the ballads of the other class, the young wife, grown desperate after eight years of suffering, asks to be taken back to her maiden home. Her husband's mother raises objections: the horses are in the meadow, the coachman is in bed. Then, she says, I will go on my bare feet. The moment her husband learns her wish, the carriage is at the door, but by the arts of the mother it goes to pieces on the way, and the journey has to be finished on horseback. The joy of her parents at seeing their daughter approaching was quenched on a nearer view: she looked more dead than quick. She called her family about her and distributed her effects. A great wail went up in the house when two sons were cut from the mother's side. (#C#, #J#, #K#, #L#, #W#: Grundtvig, 84 #C#; Kristensen, II, No 35 #A#, #B#, #C#; I, No 74 #C#.)

The first son stood up and brushed his hair: 'Most surely am I in my ninth year.'

The second stood up both fair and red: 'Most sure we'll avenge our dear mother dead.'[104]

Several of the most important ballads of the first class have taken up a part of the story of those of the second class, to the detriment of consistency. #F#, #G#, #H#, #O#, #P# (Grundtvig, 84 #F#, #G#, #H#, Kristensen, II, No 35 #F#, #G#), make the wife quit her husband's house for her father's, not only without reason, but against reason. If the woman is to die, it is natural enough that she should wish to die with the friends of her early days, and away from her uncongenial mother-in-law; but there is no kind of occasion for transferring the scene of the trick with the wax children to her father's house; and, on the other hand, it is altogether strange that her husband's mother and the rowan-tree chest (which sometimes appears to be the property of the mother, sometimes that of the wife) should go with her.

#Y#, 'Hustru og Slegfred,' Grundtvig, 85, agrees with the second class up to the point when the wife is put to bed at her mother's house, but with the important variation that the spell is the work of a former mistress of the husband; instead of his mother, as in most of the ballads, or of the wife's foster-mother, as in #C#, #D#, #J#, #K#, #M# (Grundtvig, 84 #C#, #D#, Kristensen, II, No 35 #A#, #B#, #D#), or of the wife's step-mother as in #A# only. The conclusion of 'Hustru og Slegfred' is rather flat. The wife, as she lies in bed, bids all her household hold up their hands and pray for her relief, which occurs on the same day. The news is sent to her husband, who rejoins his wife, is shown his children, praises God, and burns his mistress. Burning is also the fate of the mother-in-law in #B#, #I#, #O#, #P#, whereas in #F# she dies of chagrin, and in #G# bursts into a hundred flinders (flentsteene).

This ballad, in the mixed form of #O#, #P# (Kristensen, II, 35 #F#, #G#), has been resolved into a tale in Denmark, a few lines of verse being retained. Recourse is had by the spell-bound wife to a cunning woman in the village, who informs her that in her house there is a place in which a rowan-tree chest has stood, and that she can get relief there. The cunning woman subsequently pointing out the exact spot, two boys are born, who are seven years old, and can both walk and talk. Word is sent the witch that her son's wife has been delivered of two sons, and that she herself shall be burned the day following. The witch says, "I have been able to twine a string out of running water. If I have not succeeded in bewitching the woman, she must have found the place where the damned rowan chest stood." (Grundtvig, III, 858, No 84 #b#.)

Three Swedish versions of the ballad have been printed. #A#, #B#, from tradition of this century, are given by Arwidsson, II, 252 ff, 'Liten Kerstins Förtrollning,' No 134. These resemble the Danish ballads of the second class closely. Liten Kerstin goes to her mother's house, gives birth to two children, and dies. In #A# the children are a son and daughter. The son stands up, combs his hair, and says, "I am forty weeks on in my ninth year." He can run errands in the village, and the daughter sew red silk. In #B# both children are boys. One combs his hair, and says, "Our grandmother shall be put on two wheels." The other draws his sword, and says, "Our mother is dead, our grandmother to blame. I hope our mother is with God. Our grandmother shall be laid on seven wheels." The other copy, #C#, mentioned by Grundtvig as being in Cavallius and Stephens' manuscript collection, has been printed in the Svenska Fornminnesföreningens Tidskrift, vol. ii, p. 72 ff, 1873-74. It dates from the close of the sixteenth century, and resembles the mixed ballads of the Danish first class, combining the flitting to the father's house with the artifice of the wax children. The conclusion of this ballad has suffered greatly. After the two sons are born, we are told that Kirstin, before unmentioned, goes to the chest and makes a wax child. If the chest were moved, Elin would be free of her child. And then the boy stands up and brushes his hair, and says he has come to his eighth year.

Three stanzas and some of the incidents of a #Norwegian# version of this ballad have been communicated to Grundtvig, III, 858 f, No 84 c, by Professor Sophus Bugge. The only place which was unaffected by a spell was where Signelíti's bride-chest stood, and the chest being removed, the birth took place. The witch was a step-mother, as in Danish #A#.

There are two familiar cases of malicious arrest of childbirth in classic mythology,--those of Latona and Alcmene. The wrath of Juno was the cause in both, and perhaps the myth of Alcmene is only a repetition of an older story, with change of name. The pangs of Latona were prolonged through nine days and nights, at the end of which time Ilithyia came to her relief, induced by a bribe. (Hymn to the Delian Apollo, 91 ff.) Homer, Il. xix, 119, says only that Hera stopped the delivery of Alcmene and kept back Ilithyia. Antoninus Liberalis, in the second century of our era, in one of his abstracts from the Metamorphoses of Nicander, a poem of the second century B. C., or earlier, has this account: that when Alcmene was going with Hercules, the Fates and Ilithyia, to please Juno, kept her in her pains by sitting down and folding their hands; and that Galinthias, a playmate and companion of Alcmene, fearing that the suffering would drive her mad, ran out and announced the birth of a boy, upon which the Fates were seized with such consternation that they let go their hands, and Hercules immediately came into the world. (Antoninus Lib., Metam. c. xxix.) Ovid, Metamorphoses, ix, 281-315, is more circumstantial. After seven days and nights of torture, Lucina came, but, being bribed by Juno, instead of giving the aid for which she was invoked, sat down on the altar before Alcmene's door, with the right knee crossed over the left, and fingers interlocked, mumbling charms which checked the processes of birth. Galanthis, a servant girl _media de plebe_, was shrewd enough to suspect that Juno had some part in this mischief; and besides, as she went in and out of the house, she always saw Lucina sitting on the altar, with her hands clasped over her knees. At last, by a happy thought, she called out, "Whoever you are, wish my mistress joy; she is lighter, and has her wish." Lucina jumped up and unclasped her hands, and the birth followed instantly. Pausanias, ix, 11, tells a similar but briefer story, in which Historis, daughter of Tiresias, takes the place of Galanthis. See, for the whole matter, 'Ilithyia oder die Hexe,' in C. A. Böttiger's Kleine Schriften, I, 76 ff.

Apuleius, in his Metamorphoses, mentions a case of suspended childbirth, which, curiously enough, had lasted eight years,[105] as in the Danish and Swedish ballads. The witch is a mistress of her victim's husband, as in Grundtvig, 85, and as in a story cited by Scott from Heywood's 'Hierarchy of the Blessed Angels,' p. 474. "There is a curious tale about a Count of Westeravia [Vestravia, in diocesi Argentoratensi], whom a deserted concubine bewitched upon his marriage, so as to preclude all hopes of his becoming a father. The spell continued to operate for three years, till one day, the count happening to meet with his former mistress, she maliciously asked him about the increase of his family. The count, conceiving some suspicion from her manner, craftily answered that God had blessed him with three fine children; on which she exclaimed, like Willie's mother in the ballad, 'May Heaven confound the old hag by whose counsel I threw an enchanted pitcher into the draw-well of your palace!' The spell being found and destroyed, the count became the father of a numerous family."

A story like that of the ballad is told as a fact that took place in Arran within this century. A young man forsook his sweetheart and married another girl. When the wife's time came, she suffered excessively. A pack-man who was passing suspected the cause, went straight to the old love, and told her that a fine child was born; when up she sprang, and pulled out a large nail from the beam of the roof, calling out to her mother, "Muckle good your craft has done!" The wife was forthwith delivered. (Napier, in The Folklore Record, II, 117.)

In the #Sicilian# tales, collected by Laura Gonzenbach, Nos 12 and 15, we have the spell of folded hands placed between the knees to prevent birth, and in No 54 hands raised to the head.[106] In all these examples the spell is finally broken by telling the witch a piece of false news, which causes her to forget herself and take away her hands. (Sicilianische Märchen aus dem Volksmund gesammelt, Leipzig, 1870.)

We find in a #Roumanian# tale, contributed to Das Ausland for 1857, p. 1029, by F. Obert, and epitomized by Grundtvig, III, 859, No 84 d, a wife condemned by her offended husband to go with child till he lays his hand upon her. It is twenty years before she obtains grace, and the son whom she then bears immediately slays his father. A #Wallachian# form of this story (Walachische Märchen von Arthur u. Albert Schott, No 23) omits the revenge by the new-born child, and ends happily.

With respect to the knots in st. 34, it is to be observed that the tying of knots (as also the fastening of locks), either during the marriage ceremony or at the approach of parturition was, and is still, believed to be effectual for preventing conception or childbirth. The minister of Logierait, Perthshire, testifies, about the year 1793, that immediately before the celebration of a marriage it is the custom to loosen carefully every knot about bride and bridegroom,--garters, shoe-strings, etc. The knots are tied again before they leave the church. (Statistical Account of Scotland, V, 83.) So among the Laps and Norwegians, when a child is to be born, all the knots in the woman's clothes, or even all the knots in the house, must be untied, because of their impeding delivery. (Liebrecht, Zur Volkskunde, p. 322, who also cites the Statistical Account of Scotland.)

* * * * *

Willie's Lady is translated by Schubart, p. 74, Talvj, p. 555, and by Gerhard, p. 139. Grundtvig, 84 H (== Syv, 90, Danske Viser, 43), is translated by Jamieson, Illustrations of Northern Antiquities, p. 344, and by Prior, No 89.

A

#a.# A copy, by Miss Mary Fraser Tytler, of a transcript made by her grandfather from William Tytler's manuscript. #b.# Jamieson-Brown MS., No 15, fol. 33.

1 Willie has taen him oer the fame, He's woo'd a wife and brought her hame.

2 He's woo'd her for her yellow hair, But his mother wrought her mickle care.

3 And mickle dolour gard her dree, For lighter she can never be.

4 But in her bower she sits wi pain, And Willie mourns oer her in vain.

5 And to his mother he has gone, That vile rank witch of vilest kind.

6 He says: 'My ladie has a cup, Wi gowd and silver set about.

7 'This goodlie gift shall be your ain, And let her be lighter o her young bairn.'

8 'Of her young bairn she'll neer be lighter, Nor in her bower to shine the brighter.

9 'But she shall die and turn to clay, And you shall wed another may.'

10 'Another may I'll never wed, Another may I'll neer bring home.'

11 But sighing says that weary wight, 'I wish my life were at an end.'

12 'Ye doe [ye] unto your mother again, That vile rank witch of vilest kind.

13 'And say your ladie has a steed, The like o'm's no in the lands of Leed.

14 'For he [i]s golden shod before, And he [i]s golden shod behind.

15 'And at ilka tet of that horse's main, There's a golden chess and a bell ringing.

16 'This goodlie gift shall be your ain, And let me be lighter of my young bairn.'

17 'O her young bairn she'll neer be lighter, Nor in her bower to shine the brighter.

18 'But she shall die and turn to clay, And ye shall wed another may.'

19 'Another may I['ll] never wed, Another may I['ll] neer bring hame.'

20 But sighing said that weary wight, 'I wish my life were at an end.'

21 'Ye doe [ye] unto your mother again, That vile rank witch of vilest kind.

22 'And say your ladie has a girdle, It's red gowd unto the middle.

23 'And ay at every silver hem, Hangs fifty silver bells and ten.

24 'That goodlie gift has be her ain, And let me be lighter of my young bairn.'

25 'O her young bairn she's neer be lighter, Nor in her bower to shine the brighter.

26 'But she shall die and turn to clay, And you shall wed another may.'

27 'Another may I'll never wed, Another may I'll neer bring hame.'

28 But sighing says that weary wight, 'I wish my life were at an end.'

29 Then out and spake the Belly Blind; He spake aye in good time.

30 'Ye doe ye to the market place, And there ye buy a loaf o wax.

31 'Ye shape it bairn and bairnly like, And in twa glassen een ye pit;

32 'And bid her come to your boy's christening; Then notice weel what she shall do.

33 'And do you stand a little fore bye, And listen weel what she shall say.'

34 'Oh wha has loosed the nine witch knots That was amo that ladie's locks?

35 'And wha has taen out the kaims of care That hangs amo that ladie's hair?

36 'And wha's taen down the bush o woodbine That hang atween her bower and mine?

37 'And wha has killd the master kid That ran beneath that ladie's bed?

38 'And wha has loosed her left-foot shee, And lotten that ladie lighter be?'

39 O Willie has loosed the nine witch knots That was amo that ladie's locks.

40 And Willie's taen out the kaims o care That hang amo that ladie's hair.

41 And Willie's taen down the bush o woodbine That hang atween her bower and thine.

42 And Willie has killed the master kid That ran beneath that ladie's bed.

43 And Willie has loosed her left-foot shee, And letten his ladie lighter be.

44 And now he's gotten a bonny young son, And mickle grace be him upon.

* * * * *

#a.#

_The stanzas are not regularly divided in the MS., nor were they so divided by Scott._

41^2. hung (?) beneath: _but see 36^2._

_Scott's principal variations are_:

12^1. Yet gae ye.

14^1. For he is silver shod.

15. At every tuft of that horse main There's a golden chess and a bell to ring.

21^1. Yet gae ye.

21^2. o rankest kind.

22^2. It's a' red gowd to.

24^1. This gudely gift sall be.

26^1. For she.

28^2. my days.

30^1. Yet gae ye.

30^2. there do buy.

31^1. Do shape.

31^2. you'll put.

32^1. And bid her your boy's christening to.

33^1. a little away.

33^2. To notice weel what she may saye.

35^2. That were amang.

38^2. And let.

39^1. Syne Willie.

40^2. That were into.

41^1, 42^1, 43^1. And he.

41^2. Hung atween her bour and the witch carline.

44^2. a bonny son.

#b.#

_Divided in Jamieson's MS. into stanzas of four verses, two verses being written in one line: but Jamieson's_ 8==#a# 14-16.

1^1. Sweet Willy's taen.

5-11, _wanting. Instead of the cup, the girdle occurs here_:==#a# 21-28.

12^1. He did him till.

12^2. wilest kin.

13^1. An said, My lady.

14^{1, 2}. he is.

16^2. An lat her be lighter o her young bairn.

18^1. go to clay.

#a# 21^1==b 5^1. Now to his mither he has gane.

18^2. kin.

#a# 22^1==b 6^1. He say[s] my lady.

22^2. It's a' red.

#a# 23^1==b 7^1. at ilka.

23^2. Hings.

#a# 24^1==b 8^1. gift sall be your ain.

24^2. lat her ... o her.

#a# 29==b 22. Then out it spake the belly blin; She spake ay in a good time.

#a# 32==b 25, 26.

An do you to your mither then, An bid her come to your boy's christnen; For dear's the boy he's been to you: Then notice well what she shall do.

_Between #a# 33 and #a# 34 occurs in #b# (28-31)_:

He did him to the market place, An there he bought a loaf o wax. He shap'd it bairn and bairnly like, An in't twa glazen een he pat. He did him till his mither then, An bade him (_sic_) to his boy's christnen. An he did stan a little forebye, An notic'd well what she did say.

#a# 35^2==#b# 33^2. hang amo.

36. _wanting in #b#._

37^2. aneath.

39^2==#b# 36^2. hang amo his.

40^1. kemb o care.

40^2. his lady's.

41. _wanting in #b#._

42^2==#b# 38^2. ran aneath his.

44. _wanting in #b#._

#b# _22^2 makes the Billy Blind feminine. This is not so in #a#, or in any other ballad, and may be only an error of the transcriber, who has not always written carefully._

[102] The Jamieson-Brown copy contains seventy-eight verses; Scott's and the Tytler copy, eighty-eight. Dr Anderson's, Nichols's Illustrations, VII, 176, counts seventy-six instead of eighty-eight; but, judging by the description which Anderson has given of the Alexander-Fraser-Tytler-Brown MS., at p. 179, he is not exact. Still, so large a discrepancy is hard to explain.

[103] The sister does this in #F-I# and #S#: in #O#, #P#, the husband "has" it done.

[104] Grundtvig, 84 #D#, #E#; Kristensen, I, No 74 #A#, #B#, #C#; II, No 35 #A#, #B#, #C#.

[105] Eadem amatoris sui uxorem, quod in eam dicacule probrum dixerat, jam in sarcina prægnationis, obsæpto utero et repigrato fetu, perpetua prægnatione damuavit, et, ut cuncti numerant, jam octo annorum onere misella illa velut elephantum paritura distenditur. I, 9.

[106] We may suppose with closed fingers, or clasping the head, though this is not said. Antique vases depict one or two Ilithyias as standing by with hands elevated and _open_, during the birth of Athene from the head of Zeus. Welcker, Kleine Schriften, III, 191, note 12.

7

EARL BRAND

#A. a. b.# 'Earl Bran,' Mr Robert White's papers. #c.# 'The Brave Earl Brand and the King of England's Daughter,' Bell, Ancient Poems, etc., p. 122. #d.# Fragmentary verses remembered by Mr R. White's sister.

#B.# 'The Douglas Tragedy,' Scott's Minstrelsy, III, 246, ed. 1803.

#C.# 'Lord Douglas,' Motherwell's MS., p. 502.

#D.# 'Lady Margaret,' Kinloch MSS, I, 327.

#E.# 'The Douglas Tragedy,' Motherwell's Minstrelsy, p. 180.

#F.# 'The Child of Ell,' Percy MS., p. 57; Hales and Furnivall, I, 133.

'Earl Brand,' first given to the world by Mr Robert Bell in 1857, has preserved most of the incidents of a very ancient story with a faithfulness unequalled by any ballad that has been recovered from English oral tradition. Before the publication of 'Earl Brand,' #A c#, our known inheritance in this particular was limited to the beautiful but very imperfect fragment called by Scott 'The Douglas Tragedy,' #B#; half a dozen stanzas of another version of the same in Motherwell's Minstrelsy, #E#; so much of Percy's 'Child of Elle' as was genuine, which, upon the printing of his manuscript, turned out to be one fifth, #F#; and two versions of Erlinton, #A#, #C#.[107] What now can be added is but little: two transcripts of 'Earl Brand,' one of which, #A a#, has suffered less from literary revision than the only copy hitherto printed, #A c#; a third version of 'The Douglas Tragedy,' from Motherwell's manuscript, #C#; a fourth from Kinloch's manuscripts, #D#; and another of 'Erlinton,' #B#. Even 'Earl Brand' has lost a circumstance that forms the turning-point in Scandinavian ballads, and this capital defect attends all our other versions, though traces which remain in 'Erlinton' make it nearly certain that our ballads originally agreed in all important particulars with those which are to this day recited in the north of Europe.

The corresponding #Scandinavian# ballad is 'Ribold and Guldborg,' and it is a jewel that any clime might envy. Up to the time of Grundtvig's edition, in Danmarks gamle Folkeviser, No 82, though four versions had been printed, the only current copy for a hundred and fifty years had been Syv's No 88, based on a broadside of the date 1648, but compounded from several sources; and it was in this form that the ballad became known to the English through Jamieson's translation. Grundtvig has now published twenty-seven versions of 'Ribold og Guldborg' (II, 347 ff, nineteen; 675 ff, four; III, 849 ff, four:[108] of all which only two are fragments), and nine of 'Hildebrand og Hilde,' No 83, which, is the same story set in a dramatic frame-work (II, 393 ff, seven; 680 f, one; III, 857, one, a fragment). Three more Danish versions of 'Ribold og Guldborg' are furnished by Kristensen, Gamle jydske Folkeviser, I, No 37, II, No 84 #A#, #B# (#C*#, #D*#, #E*#). To these we may add the last half, sts 15-30, of 'Den farlige Jomfru,' Grundtvig, 184 #G#. Of Grundtvig's texts, 82 #A# is of the sixteenth century; #B-H# are of the seventeenth; the remainder and Kristensen's three from recent tradition. Six versions of 'Hildebrand og Hilde,' #A-F#, are of the seventeenth century; one is of the eighteenth, #G#; and the remaining two are from oral tradition of our day.

The first six of Grundtvig's versions of 'Ribold and Guldborg,' #A-F#, are all from manuscripts, and all of a pure traditional character, untampered with by "collators." #G# and #H# are mixed texts: they have #F# for their basis, but have admitted stanzas from other sources. Most of the versions from recitation are wonderful examples and proofs of the fidelity with which simple people "report and hold" old tales: for, as the editor has shown, verses which never had been printed, but which are found in old manuscripts, are now met with in recited copies; and these recited copies, again, have verses that occur in no Danish print or manuscript, but which nevertheless are found in Norwegian and Swedish recitations, and, what is more striking, in Icelandic tradition of two hundred years' standing.

The story in the older Danish ballads runs thus. Ribold, a king's son, sought Guldborg's love in secret. He said he would carry her to a land where death and sorrow came not; where all the birds were cuckoos, and all the grass was leeks, and all the streams ran wine. Guldborg, not indisposed, asked how she should evade the watch kept over her by all her family and by her betrothed. Ribold disguised her in his cloak and armor, #B#, #E#, #F#, and rode off, with Guldborg behind him. On the heath they meet a rich earl [a crafty man, #C#; her betrothed, #D#], who asks, Whither away, with your stolen maid? [little page, #B#, #F#.] Ribold replies that it is his youngest sister, whom he has taken from a cloister, #A#, #E# [sick sister, #C#; brother, #B#, #F#; page, #D#]. This shift avails nothing; no more does a bribe which he offers for keeping his secret. Report is at once made to her father that Guldborg has eloped with Ribold. Guldborg perceives that they are pursued, and is alarmed. Ribold reassures her, and prepares to meet his foes. He bids Guldborg hold his horse, #B#, #C#, #E#, and, whatever may happen, not to call him by name: "Though thou see me bleed, name me not to death; though thou see me fall, name me not at all!" Ribold cuts down six or seven of her brothers and her father, besides others of her kin; the youngest brother only is left, and Guldborg in an agony calls upon Ribold to spare him, to carry tidings to her mother. No sooner was his name pronounced than Ribold received a mortal wound. He sheathed his sword, and said, Come, wilt thou ride with me? Wilt thou go home to thy mother again, or wilt thou follow so sad a swain? And she answered, I will not go home to my mother again; I will follow thee, my heart's dearest man. They rode through the wood, and not a word came from the mouth of either. Guldborg asked, Why art thou not as glad as before? And Ribold answered, Thy brother's sword has been in my heart. They reached his house. He called to one to take his horse, to another to bring a priest, and said his brother should have Guldborg. But she would not give her faith to two brothers. Ribold died that night, #C#. Three dead came from Ribold's bower: Ribold and his lief, and his mother, who died of grief! In #A# Guldborg slays herself, and dies in her lover's arms.

'Hildebrand and Hilde,' #A#, #B#, #C#, #D#, opens with the heroine in a queen's service, sewing her seam wildly, putting silk for gold and gold for silk. The queen calls her to account. Hilde begs her mistress to listen to her tale of sorrow. She was a king's daughter. Twelve knights had been appointed to be her guard, and one had beguiled her, Hildebrand, son of the king of England. They went off together, and were surprised by her brothers [father, #B#, #C#, #D#]. Hildebrand bade her be of good cheer; but she must not call him by name if she saw him bleed or fall, #A#, #B#, #D#. A heap of knights soon lay at his feet. Hilde forgot herself, and called out, Hildebrand, spare my youngest brother! Hildebrand that instant received a mortal wound, and fell. The younger brother tied her to his horse, and dragged her home. They shut her up at first in a strong tower, built for the purpose, #A#,# B# [Swedish #A#, a dark house], and afterwards sold her into servitude for a church bell. Her mother's heart broke at the bell's first stroke, and Hilde, with the last word of her tale, fell dead in the queen's arms.

The most important deviation of the later versions from the old is exhibited by #S# and #T#, and would probably be observed in #Q#, #R#, as well, were these complete. #S#, #T# are either a mixture of 'Ribold and Guldborg' with 'Hildebrand and Hilde,' or forms transitional between the two. In these Ribold does not live to reach his home, and Guldborg, unable to return to hers, offers herself to a queen, to spin silk and weave gold [braid hair and work gold]. But she cannot sew for grief. The queen smacks her on the cheek for neglecting her needle. Poor Guldborg utters a protest, but gives no explanation, and the next morning is found dead. Singularly enough, the name of the hero in #Q#, #R#, #S#, #T#, is also an intermediate form. Ribold is the name in all the old Danish copies except #C#, and that has Ride-bolt. Danish #I#, #K#, #X#, #Z#, all the Icelandic copies, and Swedish #D#, have either Ribold or some unimportant variation. #Q#, #R#, #S#, have Ride-brand [#T#, Rederbrand]. All copies of Grundtvig 83, except Danish #G#, Swedish #C#, which do not give the hero's name, have Hilde-brand; so also 82 #N#, #O#, #P#, #V#, and Kristensen, I, No 37. The name of the woman is nearly constant both in 82 and 83.

The paradise promised Guldborg in all the old versions of 82[109] disappears from the recited copies, except #K#, #M#. It certainly did not originally belong to 'Ribold and Guldborg,' or to another Danish ballad in which it occurs ('Den trofaste Jomfru,' Grundtvig, 249 #A#), but rather to ballads like 'Kvindemorderen,' Grundtvig, 183 #A#, or 'Líti Kersti,' Landstad, 44, where a supernatural being, a demon or a hillman, seeks to entice away a mortal maid. See No 4, p. 27. In 82 #L#, #N#, #U#, #V#, #Y#, #Æ#, #Ø#, and Kristensen's copies, the lovers are not encountered by anybody who reports their flight. Most of the later versions, #K#, #L#, #M#, #N#, #P#, #U#, #V#, #Y#, #Æ#, #Ø#, and Kristensen's three, make them halt in a wood, where Ribold goes to sleep in Guldborg's lap, and is roused by her when she perceives that they are pursued. So Norwegian #B#, Swedish #A#, #B#, #C#, and 'Hildebrand and Hilde' #B#. #M#, #Q#, #R#, #S#, #T#, #Z#, have not a specific prohibition of _dead-naming_, but even these enjoin silence. 83 #C# is the only ballad in which there is a fight and no prohibition of either kind, but it is clear from the course of the story that the stanza containing the usual injunction has simply dropped out. #P# is distinguished from all other forms of the story by the heroine's killing herself before her dying lover reaches his house.

The four first copies of 'Hildebrand and Hilde,' as has been seen, have the story of Ribold and Guldborg with some slight differences and some abridgment. There is no elopement in #B#: the lovers are surprised in the princess' bower. When Hilde has finished her tale, in #A#, the queen declares that Hildebrand was her son. In #B# she interrupts the narrative by announcing her discovery that Hildebrand was her brother. #C# and #D# have nothing of the sort. There is no fight in #E-H#. #E# has taken up the commonplace of the bower on the strand which was forced by nine men.[110] Hildebrand is again the son of the queen, and, coming in just as Hilde has expired, exclaims that he will have no other love, sets his sword against a stone, and runs upon it. #H# has the same catastrophe. #F# represents the father as simply showing great indignation and cruelty on finding out that one of the guardian knights had beguiled his daughter, and presently selling her for a new church bell. The knight turns out here again to be the queen's son; the queen says he shall betroth Hille, and Hille faints for joy. #G# agrees with #B# as to the surprise in the bower. The knight's head is hewn off on the spot. The queen gives Hilde her youngest son for a husband, and Hilde avows that she is consoled. #I# agrees with #E# so far as it goes, but is a short fragment.

There are three #Icelandic# versions of this ballad, 'Ribbalds kvæði,' Íslenzk Fornkvæði, No 16, all of the seventeenth century. They all come reasonably close to the Danish as to the story, and particularly #A#. Ribbald, with no prologue, invites Gullbrún "to ride." He sets her on a white horse; of all women she rode best. They have gone but a little way, when they see a pilgrim riding towards them, who hails Ribbald with, Welcome, with thy stolen maid! Ribbald pretends that the maid is his sister, but the pilgrim knows very well it is Gullbrún. She offers her cloak to him not to tell her father, but the pilgrim goes straight to the king, and says, Thy daughter is off! The king orders his harp to be brought, for no purpose but to dash it on the floor once and twice, and break out the strings. He then orders his horse. Gullbrún sees her father come riding under a hill-side, then her eleven brothers, then seven brothers-in-law. She begs Ribbald to spare her youngest brother's life, that he may carry the news to her mother. He replies, I will tie my horse by the reins; you take up your sewing! then three times forbids her to name him during the fight. He slew her father first, next the eleven brothers, then the other seven, all which filled her with compunction, and she cried out, Ribbald, still thy brand! On the instant Ribbald received many wounds. He wiped his bloody sword, saying, This is what you deserve, Gullbrún, but love is your shield; then set her on her horse, and rode to his brother's door. He called out, Here is a wife for you! But Gullbrún said, Never will I be given to two brothers. Soon after Ribbald gave up the ghost. There was more mourning than mirth; three bodies went to the grave in one coffin, Ribbald, his lady, and his mother, who died of grief.

#B# and #C# have lost something at the beginning, #C# starting at the same point as our 'Douglas Tragedy.' The king pursues Ribbald by water. Gullbrún (#B#) stands in a tower and sees him land. Ribbald gives Gullbrún to his brother, as in #A#: she lives in sorrow, and dies a maid.

#Norwegian.# ('Ribold and Guldborg.') #A#, 'Rikeball og stolt Guðbjörg,' Landstad, 33; #B#, 'Veneros og stolt Ölleber,' Landstad, 34; #C#, #D#, #E#, #F#, in part described and cited, with six other copies, Grundtvig, III, p. 853 f. The last half of Landstad No 23, stanzas 17-34, and stanzas 18-25 of Landstad 28 #B#, also belong here. #A# agrees with the older Danish versions, even to the extent of the paradise. #B# has been greatly injured. Upon the lady's warning Veneros of the approach of her father, he puts her up in an oak-tree for safety. He warns her not to call him by name, and she says she will rather die first; but her firmness is not put to the test in this ballad, some verses having dropped out just at this point. Veneros is advised to surrender, but dispatches his assailants by eighteen thousands (like Lille brór, in Landstad, 23), and by way of conclusion hews the false Pál greive, who had reported his elopement to Ölleber's father, into as many pieces. He then takes Ölleber on his horse, they ride away and are married. Such peculiarities in the other copies as are important to us will be noticed further on.

('Hildebrand and Hilde.') #A#, one of two Norwegian copies communicated by Professor Bugge to Grundtvig, III, 857 f, agrees well with Danish #E#, but has the happy conclusion of Danish #F#, #G#, #I#. The heroine is sold for _nine_ bells. #B#, the other, omits the bower-breaking of #A# and Danish #E#, and ends with marriage.

The #Swedish# forms of 'Ribold and Guldborg' are: #A#, 'Hillebrand,' Afzelius, No 2; #B#, 'Herr Redebold,' and #C#, 'Kung Vallemo,' Afzelius, No 80; new ed., No 2, 1, 2, 3; #D#, 'Ribbolt,' Arwidsson, No 78; #E#, 'Herr Redebold' #F#, 'Herting Liljebrand,' and #G#, 'Herr Balder,' in Cavallius and Stephens' manuscript collection; #H#, 'Kung Walmon,' E. Wigström's Folkdiktning, No 15, p. 33. #A#, #B#, #C#, #H#, are not markedly different from the ordinary Danish ballad, and this is true also, says Grundtvig, of the unprinted versions, #E#, #F#, #G#. #D# and #G# are of the seventeenth century, the others from recent tradition. Ribold is pictured in #D# as a bold prince, equally versed in runes and arts as in manly exercises. He visits Giötha by night: they slumber sweet, but wake in blood. She binds up his wounds with rich kerchiefs. He rides home to his father's, and sits down on a bench. The king bids his servants see what is the matter, and adds, Be he sick or be he hurt, he got it at Giötha-Lilla's. They report the prince stabbed with sharp pikes within, and bound with silk kerchiefs without. Ribold bids them bury him in the mould, and not blame Giötha-Lilla; "for my horse was fleet, and I was late, and he hurtled me 'gainst an apple-tree" (so Hillebrand in #A#). #E# represents the heroine as surviving her lover, and united to a young king, but always grieving for Redebold.

'Hildebrand and Hilde' exists in Swedish in three versions: #A#, a broadside of the last part of the seventeenth century, now printed in the new edition of Afzelius, p. 142 ff of the notes (the last nine stanzas before, in Danske Viser, III, 438 f); #B#, Afzelius, No 32, new ed. No 26, #C#, Arwidsson, No 107, both taken down in this century. In #A# and #B# Hillebrand, son of the king of England, carries off Hilla; they halt in a grove; she wakes him from his sleep when she hears her father and seven brothers coming; he enjoins her not to call him by name, which still she does upon her father's being slain [or when only her youngest brother is left], and Hillebrand thereupon receives mortal wounds. He wipes his sword, saying, This is what you would deserve, were you not Hilla. The youngest brother ties Hilla to his horse, drags her home, and confines her in a dark house, which swarms with snakes and dragons (#A# only). They sell her for a new church bell, and her mother's heart breaks at the first sound. Hilla falls dead at the queen's knee. #C# has lost the dead-naming, and ends with the queen's promising to be Hilla's best friend.

A detailed comparison of the English ballads, and especially of 'Earl Brand,' with the Scandinavian (such as Grundtvig has made, III, 855 f) shows an unusual and very interesting agreement. The name Earl Brand, to begin with, is in all probability a modification of the Hildebrand found in Danish 82 #N#, #O#, #P#, #V#, #C*#, in all versions of Danish 83, and in the corresponding Swedish #A#. Ell, too, in Percy's fragment, which may have been Ellë earlier, points to Hilde, or something like it, and Erl-inton might easily be corrupted from such a form as the Alibrand of Norwegian #B# (Grundtvig, III, 858). Hildebrand is the son of the king of England in Danish 83 #A-E#, and the lady in 'Earl Brand' is the same king's daughter, an interchange such as is constantly occurring in tradition. Stanza 2 can hardly be the rightful property of 'Earl Brand.' Something very similar is met with in 'Leesome Brand,' and is not much in place there. For 'old Carl Hood,' of whom more presently, Danish 82 #X# and Norwegian #A#, #C# have an old man, Danish #C# a crafty man, #T# a false younker, and Norwegian #B# and three others "false Pál greive." The lady's urging Earl Brand to slay the old carl, and the answer, that it would be sair to kill a gray-haired man, sts 8, 9, are almost literally repeated in Norwegian #A#, Landstad, No 33. The knight does slay the old man in Danish #X# and Norwegian #C#, and slays the court page in Danish #Z#, and false Pál greive in Norwegian #B#,--in this last _after_ the battle. The question, "Where have ye stolen this lady away?" in st. 11, occurs in Danish 82 #A#, #D#, #E#, #K#, #P#, #R#, #S#, #T#, #Z#, in Norwegian #B# and Icelandic #B#, and something very similar in many other copies. The reply, "She is my sick sister, whom I have brought from Winchester" [nunnery], is found almost literally in Danish #C#, #X#, #Z#: "It is my sick sister; I took her yesterday from the cloister." [Danish #E#, it is my youngest sister from the cloister; she is sick: Danish #A#, youngest sister from cloister: Danish #R# and Norwegian #B#, sister from cloister: Danish #S#, #T#, sister's daughter from cloister: Norwegian #F#, sister from Holstein: Danish #P#, Icelandic #A#, Norwegian #A#, sister.] The old man, crafty man, rich earl, in the Scandinavian ballads, commonly answers that he knows Guldborg very well; but in Danish #D#, where Ribold says it is a court page he has hired, we have something like sts 14, 15: "Why has he such silk-braided hair?" On finding themselves discovered, the lovers, in the Scandinavian ballad, attempt to purchase silence with a bribe: Danish #A-I#, #M#, Icelandic and Norwegian #A#, #B#. This is not expressly done in 'Earl Brand,' but the same seems to be meant in st. 10 by "I'll gie him a pound." St. 17 is fairly paralleled by Danish #S#, 18, 19: "Where is Guldborg, thy daughter? Walking in the garden, gathering roses;" and st. 18, by Norwegian #B#, 15: "You may search without and search within, and see whether Ölleber you can find." The announcement in st. 19 is made in almost all the Scandinavian ballads, in words equivalent to "Ribold is off with thy daughter," and then follows the arming for the pursuit. The lady looks over her shoulder and sees her father coming, as in st. 21, in Danish 82 #A#, #F#, #H#, #I#, #Q#, #R#, #T#, #X#, #Z#, and Norwegian #A#.

The scene of the fight is better preserved in the Scottish ballads than in 'Earl Brand,' though none of these have the cardinal incident of the death-naming. All the Scottish versions, #B-F#, and also 'Erlinton,' #A#, #B#, make the lady hold the knight's horse: so Danish 82 #B#, #C#, #E#, #I#, #Æ#, #D*#, Icelandic #C#, Norwegian and Swedish #A#, and Danish 83 #D#. Of the knight's injunction, "Name me not to death, though thou see me bleed," which, as has been noted, is kept by nearly every Danish ballad (and by the Icelandic, the Norwegian, and by Swedish 'Ribold and Guldborg,' #A#, #B#, #C#, #H#, Swedish 'Hildebrand and Hilde,' #A#, #B#), there is left in English only this faint trace, in 'Erlinton,' #A#, #B#: "See ye dinna change your cheer until ye see my body bleed." It is the wish to save the life of her youngest brother that causes the lady to call her lover by name in the larger number of Scandinavian ballads, and she adds, "that he may carry the tidings to my mother," in Danish 82 #A#, #B#, #C#, #E#, #F#, #G#, #H#, #M#, #X#, 83 #B#, #C#, #D#. Grief for her father's death is the impulse in Danish 82 #I#, #N#, #O#, #Q#, #R#, #S#, #Y#, #Z#, #Æ#, #Ø#, #A*#, #C*#, #D*#, #E*#, Swedish #A#, #B#, #C#, #H#. English #A# says nothing of father or brother; but in #B#, #C#, #D#, #E#, it is the father's death that causes the exclamation. All the assailants are slain in 'Erlinton' #A#, #B#, except an aged knight [the auldest man], and he is spared to carry the tidings home. 'Erlinton' #C#, however, agrees with the oldest Danish copies in making the youngest brother the motive of the lady's intervention. It is the fifteenth, and last, of the assailants that gives Earl Brand his death-wound; in Danish #H#, the youngest brother, whom he has been entreated to spare; and so, apparently, in Danish #C# and Norwegian #A#.

The question, "Will you go with me or return to your mother?" which we find in English #B#, #C#, #D#, is met with also in many Danish versions, 82 #B#, #H#, #K#, #L#, #M#, #N#, #P#, #U#, #Z#, #Æ#, #Ø#, #C*#, and Swedish #A#, #B#, #C#. The dying man asks to have his bed made in English #B#, #C#, as in Danish 82 #B#, #C#, #K#, #L#, #N#, #U#, #N#, #Æ#, #Ø#, #C*#, #D*#, Norwegian #A#, Swedish #A#, #B#, #C#, #H#, and desires that the lady may marry his brother in English #A#, as in nearly all the Danish versions, Icelandic #A#, #B#, #C#, Norwegian #C#, #D#, #E#, Swedish #C#. He declares her a maiden true in 'Earl Brand,' #A c# 33, and affirms the same with more particularity in Danish 82 #B#, #C#, #E#, #F#, #G#, #M#, #Ø#, Icelandic #B#, #C#, Norwegian #A#, #C#, #E#, Swedish #C#. The growth of the rose and brier [bush and brier] from the lovers' grave in English #B#, #C#, is not met with in any version of 'Ribold and Guldborg' proper, but 'Den farlige Jomfru' #G#, Grundtvig, 184, the last half of which, as already remarked, is a fragment of a Ribold ballad, has a linden in place of the rose and brier.

No complete ballad of the Ribold class is known to have survived in #German#, but a few verses have been interpolated by tradition in the earliest copy of the Ulinger ballad (vv. 47-56), which may almost with certainty be assigned to one of the other description. They disturb the narrative where they are, and a ready occasion for their slipping in was afforded by the scene being exactly the same in both ballads: a knight and a lady, with whom he had eloped, resting in a wood.[111] See No 4, p. 32 of this volume.

We find in a pretty #Neapolitan-Albanian# ballad, which, with others, is regarded by the editors as a fragment of a connected poem, several of the features of these northern ones. A youth asks a damsel in marriage, but is not favored by her mother, father, or brother. He wins over first the mother and then the father by handsome presents, but his gifts, though accepted, do not conciliate the brother. He carries off the lady on horseback, and is attacked by the brother, four uncles, and seven cousins. He is killed and falls from his horse; with him the lady falls dead also, and both are covered up with stones. In the spring the youth comes up a cypress, the damsel comes up a vine, and encloses the cypress in her arms. (Rapsodie d'un poema albanese raccolte nelle colonie del Napoletano, de Rada and de' Coronei, Florence, 1866, lib. ii., canto viii.)

These ballads would seem to belong among the numerous ramifications of the Hilde saga. Of these, the second lay of Helgi Hundingslayer, in Sæmund's Edda, and 'Waltharius,' the beautiful poem of Ekkehard, are most like the ballads.[112] Leaving 'Waltharius' till we come to 'Erlinton,' we may notice that Sigrún, in the Helgi lay, though promised by her father to another man, Hödbrodd, son of Granmar, preferred Helgi. She sought him out, and told him frankly her predicament: she feared, she said, the wrath of her friends, for breaking her father's promise. Helgi accepted her affection, and bade her not care for the displeasure of her relatives. A great battle ensued between Helgi and the sons of Granmar, who were aided by Sigrún's father and brothers. All her kinsmen were slain except one brother, Dag. He bound himself to peace with Helgi, but, notwithstanding, made sacrifices to Odin to obtain the loan of his spear, and with it slew Helgi. We have, therefore, in so much of the lay of Helgi Hundingslayer, the groundwork of the story of the ballads: a woman, who, as in many of the Ribold ballads, has been betrothed to a man she does not care for, gives herself to another; there is a fight, in which a great number of her kinsmen fall; one brother survives, who is the death of the man she loves. The lay of Helgi Hiörvard's son, whose story has much in common with that of his namesake, affords two resemblances of detail not found in the lay of the Hundingslayer. Helgi Hiörvard's son, while his life-blood is ebbing, expresses himself in almost the words of the dying Ribold: "The sword has come very near my heart." He then, like Ribold and Earl Brand, declares his wish that his wife should marry his brother, and she, like Guldborg, declines a second union.[113]

There is also a passage in the earlier history of Helgi Hundingslayer of which traces appear to be preserved in ballads, and before all in the English ballad 'Earl Brand,' #A#. Hunding and Helgi's family were at feud. Helgi introduced himself into Hunding's court as a spy, and when he was retiring sent word to Hunding's son that he had been there disguised as a son of Hagal, Helgi's foster-father. Hunding sent men to take him, and Helgi, to escape them, was forced to assume woman's clothes and grind at the mill. While Hunding's men are making search, a mysterious blind man, surnamed the bale-wise, or evil-witted (Blindr inn bölvísi), calls out, Sharp are the eyes of Hagal's maid; it is no churl's blood that stands at the mill; the stones are riving, the meal-trough is springing; a hard lot has befallen a war-king when a chieftain must grind strange barley; fitter for that hand is the sword-hilt than the mill-handle. Hagal pretends that the fierce-eyed maid is a virago whom Helgi had taken captive, and in the end Helgi escapes. This malicious personage reappears in the Hrômund saga as "Blind the Bad" and "the Carl Blind, surnamed Bavís," and is found elsewhere. His likeness to "old Carl Hood," who "comes for ill, but never for good," and who gives information of Earl Brand's flight with the king's daughter, does not require to be insisted on. Both are identical, we can scarcely doubt, with the blind [one-eyed] old man of many tales, who goes about in various disguises, sometimes as beggar, with his hood or hat slouched over his face,--that is Odin, the Síðhöttr or Deep-hood of Sæmund, who in the saga of Hálf and his champions is called simple Hood, as here, and expressly said to be Odin.[114] Odin, though not a thoroughly malignant divinity, had his dark side, and one of his titles in Sæmund's Edda is Bölverkr, _maleficus_. He first caused war by casting his spear among men, and Dag, after he has killed Helgi, says Odin was the author of all the mischief, for he brought strife among kinsmen.[115]

The disastrous effects of "naming" in a great emergency appear in other northern traditions, though not so frequently as one would expect. A diverting Swedish saga, which has been much quoted, relates how St. Olof bargained with a troll for the building of a huge church, the pay to be the sun and moon, or St. Olof himself. The holy man was equally amazed and embarrassed at seeing the building run up by the troll with great rapidity, but during a ramble among the hills had the good luck to discover that the troll's name was Wind and Weather, after which all was easy. For while the troll was on the roof of the church, Olof called out to him,

'Wind and Weather, hi! You've set the spire awry;'

and the troll, thus called by his name, lost his strength, fell off, and was dashed into a hundred pieces, all flint stones. (Iduna,