No. 4: Lady Isabel and the Elf Knight
[This ballad theme has been widely disseminated through Europe, Scandinavia and the Americas. Child's narrative below is extensive. There are 736 listings in the Roud Index (attached to the Recordings & Info page; since c.2011 Roud has added more), the Bronson list of 141 versions with tunes has not been completed totaling 115 (see: Sheet Music). More than 1800 variants of the ballad are noted in a book entitled, The Ballad of "Lady Isabel and the False Knight" by Dr. Ivar Kemppinen (Helsinki: Kirja-Mono Oy, 1954; pp. 301) which will also be used (See: Bayard's Review 1955).
Child has 8 versions (A-F, with G and H in Additions and Corrections), see below and also attached under English Versions and Other Versions.
It is my opinion, and it is corroborated by Barry (1909) the girl's name May Collin (and derivatives of it- My Golden; which could be a derivative of May Golden; may=my) are slang words for the Irish word, cailin, meaning "girl," "girlfriend" or "lover." So the My (May) Cailin names may not be derived from proper names. In Delormes' version (Flanders H) it's "gay colin," which could easily become 'May Colvin" since it has the correct vowel sound.
Only in the English broadsides Child E and F, possibly the oldest versions, is the girl named Pretty Polly. Calling a parrot "Polly" or "Poll" is standard and it would be easy to use the girl's name for the parrot's name. In several versions this is exactly the case, the girl and parrot are both named Polly. It seems that the girls name could be, and frequently is, based on the Irish slang for girl which is "cailin" or "colleen"= Colin=Collin=Colvin etc. Her first name could be derived from "My" (My Callin) and could be "May."
The common American title "Pretty Polly" should not be confused with another somewhat similar murder ballad (except the girl is murdered) also commonly titled, Pretty Polly, which is the Gosport Tragedy and usually begins, "Polly, Pretty Polly, yonder she stands."
R. Matteson 2011; 2014; 2018]
CONTENTS:
1. Child's Narrative
2. Child's Ballad Texts A-G (Version G was added in a later edition of Additions and Corrections. Changes for A b, B c-d, C b-c and D b-d are found in End-Notes)
3. Footnotes
4. End Notes
5. Additional texts
6. Appendix (From Volume 9 "Additions and Corrections" by Kittredge)
7. Additions and Corrections
ATTACHED PAGES (see left hand column):
1. Recordings & Info: Lady Isabel and the Elf Knight
A. Roud 21: Lady Isabel and the Elf Knight;
B. Ballad Source Study: Child Ballad #4 as Exemplar
C. Broadsides- Outlandish Knight
D. Narrative Change "Lady Isabel and the Elf Knight"
E. Review: Kemppinen and "Lady Isabel"- Bayard 1955
F. Thematic Classification and "Lady Isabel"- Long
G. Excerpts from "The Ballad of "Lady Isabel and the False Knight" by Dr. Iivar Kemppinen
2. Sheet Music: Lady Isabel and the Elf Knight (Bronson's texts and some music)
3. US & Canadian Versions
4. British Versions & Other Versions (My headnotes)
Child's Narrative: 4. Lady Isabel and the Elf Knight
A. a. 'The Gowans sae gay,' Buchan's Ballads of the North of Scotland, I, 22.
b. 'Aye as the Gowans grow gay,' Motherwell's Manuscript, p. 563.
B. 'The Water o Wearie's Well.'
a. Buchan's Manuscripts, II, fol. 80
b. Buchan's B. N. S., II, 201.
c. Motherwell's Manuscript, p. 561.
d. 'Wearie's Wells,' Harris Manuscript, No 19.
C. a. 'May Colven,' Herd's Manuscripts, 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.
d. 'The historical ballad of May Culzean,' an undated stall-copy.
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.
[G. British Museum, Manuscript Addit. 20094. 'The Knight and the Chief's Daughter,' communicated to Mr. T. Crofton Croker in 1829, as remembered by Mr. W. Pigott Rogers, and believed by Mr. Rogers to have been learned by him from an Irish nursery-maid.]
[H. 'May Collin,' MS. at Abbotsford. Scotch Ballads, Materials for Border Minstrelsy, No. 146. From Additions and Corrections. Printed as version H in "English and Scottish Popular Ballads," Volume 4, page 7 in the Sargent and Kittredge edition, 1904.]
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.[1] 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,[2] 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.[3]
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,[4] 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.[5] 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.[6]
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:[7] 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.[8] 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 manuscript; B, thirty stanzas, C, twenty-four, D, thirty-seven, from manuscripts of the 17th century; E, fifty-seven, from a broad side 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. [9] 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 [10] [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 land and foot, then cries, Wake up! I will not betray you in sleep.[11] 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 Guðbjorg; 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.[12] 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 13a, 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; Böme, No 13b, 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, IIr 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,'[13] 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, 4 Ulrich u. Annle,' nineteen two-line stanzas, a second Kuhländchen version, Meinert, p. 66; Mittler, No 83. Z a, 4 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, an other 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.[14]
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.[15] 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 hazelbush, that sang, Listen, Fridburg: Ulinger has hanged eleven[16] 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.[17]
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 be long to another ballad,[18] 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 lumbrunnenn." 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.' [19]
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? [20] 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.' [21]
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[22] 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.[23]
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.' [24]
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 straight way 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.[25]
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.[26]
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,
'T is 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; [27] 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[28] 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, Heir 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, Annie, 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. [29]
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.
[1] , Deutsche Volkslieder aus Steiermark, 1881, p. 338, No 309, 'Der Ritter und die Maid.' (Köhler: not yet seen by me.)
DD. Curt Mündel, Elsässische Volkslieder, p. 12, No 10, a fragment of fifteen verses. As Anna sits by the Rhine combing her hair, Heinrich comes along on his horse, sees her weep, and asks why. It is not for gold and not for goods, but because she is to die that day. Heinrich draws his sword, runs her through, and rides home. He is asked why his sword is red, and says he has killed two doves. They say the dove must be Anna.
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, [30] 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 [31] 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 Bokendorf. 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.[32]
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.'[33] (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,' 1cod by 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.[34]
'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*, Kozlowski, 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, 1: 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.[35]
The story of the larger part of these ballads, conveyed as briefly as possible, is this: John, who is watering horses, urges Catherine,[36] 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.[37] 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," [38] 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, 1], "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. [39] 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 is a Little-Russian ballad which begins like the Polish 'Jás i Kasia,' but ends with the girl being tied to a tree and burned, instead of being drowned: Wisła, IV, 423, from Zbiór wiadom. do antrop., III, 150, No 17. Traces of the incident of the burning are also found in Polish and Moravian songs: Wisła, pp. 418-22. It is probable that there were two independent ballads, and that these have been confounded.
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 [40] ) 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, B, 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 your self into the river, or go home to your mother? So H, and R nearly. [41] 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.[42]
Other Slavic forms of this ballad resemble more or less the third German class. A Wendish version from Upper Lusatia, Haupt and Schmaler, Part I, No 1, p. 27, makes Hilžička (Lizzie) go out before dawn to cut grass. Hołdrašk suddenly appears, and says she must pay him some forfeit for trespassing in his wood. She has nothing but her sickle, her silver finger-ring, and, when these are rejected, her wreath, and that, she says, he shall not have if she dies for it. Hołdrašk, who avows that he has had a fancy for her seven years (cf. German Y, and the Transylvanian mixed form B), gives her her choice, to be cut to pieces by his sword, or trampled to death by his horse. Which way pleases him, she says, only she begs for three cries. All three are for her brothers. They ride round the wood twice, seeing nobody; the third time Hołdrašk comes up to them. Then follows the dialogue about the bloody sword and the dove. When asked where he has left Hilžička, Hołdrašk is silent. The elder brother seizes him, the younger dispatches him with his sword.
Very similar is a Bohemian ballad, translated in Waldau's Böhmische Granaten, II, 25.[43] While Katie is cutting grass, early in the morning, Indriasch presents himself, and demands some for his horse. She says, You must dismount, if your horse is to have grass. "If I do, I will take away your wreath." "Then God will not grant you his blessing." He springs from his horse, and while he gives it grass with one hand snatches at the wreath with the other. "Will you die, or surrender your wreath?" Take my life, she says, but allow me three cries. Two cries reached no human ear, but the third cry her mother heard, and called to her sons to saddle, for Katie was culling in the wood, and was in trouble. They rode over stock and stone, and came to a brook where Indriasch was washing his hands. The same dialogue ensues as in the Wendish ballad. The brothers hewed the murderer into fragments.
A Servian ballad has fainter but unmistakable traces of the same tradition: Vuk, Srpske Narodne Pjesme, I, 282, No 385, ed. 1841; translated by Goetze, Serbische V. L., p. 99, by Talvj, V. L. der Serben, 2d ed., II, 172, by Kapper, Gesänge der Serben, II, 318. Mara is warned by her mother not to dance with Thomas. She disobeys. Thomas, while dancing, gives a sign to his servants to bring horses. The two ride off, and when they come to the end of a field Thomas says, Seest thou yon withered maple? There thou shalt hang, ravens eat out thine eyes, eagles beat thee with their wings. Mara shrieks, Ah me! so be it with every girl that does not take her mother's advice.[44]
French
This ballad is well known in France, and is generally found in a form resembling the English; that is to say, the scene of the attempted murder is the sea or a river (as in no other but the Polish), and the lady delivers herself by an artifice. One French version nearly approaches Polish O-CC.
A. 'Renauld et ses quatorze Femmes,' 44 vv, 1 Paymaigre, Chants populaires recueillis dans le pays messin, No 31, I, 140. Renauld carried off the king's daughter. When they were gone half-way, she called to him that she was dying of hunger (cf. German A-F). Eat your hand, he answered, for you will never eat bread again. When they had come to the middle of the wood, she called out that she was dying of thirst. Drink your blood, he said, for you will never drink wine again. When they came to the edge of the wood, he said, Do you see that river? Fourteen dames have been drowned there, and you shall be the fifteenth. When they came to the river-bank, he bade her put off her cloak, her shift. It is not for knights, she said, to see ladies in such plight; they should bandage their eyes with a handkerchief. This Renauld did, and the fair one threw him into the river. He laid hold of a branch; she cut it off with his sword (cf. the Polish ballad, where the catastrophe, and consequently this act, is reversed). "What will they say if you go back without your lover?" "I will tell them that I did for you what you meant to do for me."[45] " Reach me your hand; I wall marry you Sunday."
"Marry, marry a fish, Renauld,
The fourteen women down below."
B. 'De Dion et de la Fille du Roi,' from Auvergne, Ampere, Instructions, etc., 40 vv, p. 40, stanzas 15-24, the first fourteen constituting another ballad.[46] The pair went five or six leagues without exchanging a word; only the fair one said, I am so hungry I could eat my fist. Eat it, replied Dion, for you never again will eat bread. Then they went five or six leagues in silence, save that she said, I am so thirsty I could drink my blood. "Drink it, for you never will drink wine. Over there is a pond in which fifteen ladies have had a bath, have drowned themselves, and you will make sixteen." Arrived at the pond, he orders her to take off her clothes. She tells him to put his sword under his feet, his cloak before his face, and turn to the pond; and, when he has done so, pushes him in. Here are my keys! he cries. "I don't want them; I will find locksmiths." "What will your friends say?" "I will tell them. I did by you as you would have done by me."
C. 'Veux-tu venir, bell' Jeanrieton,' 32 vv, from Poitou and Aunis,. Bujeaud, II, 232. When they reach the water, the fair one asks for a drink. The man says, incoherently enough, Before drinking of this white wine I mean to drink your blood. The stanza that should tell how many have been drowned before is lost. Jeanneton, having been ordered to strip, pushes the "beau galant" into the sea, while, at her request, he is pulling off her stockings. He catches at a branch; she cuts it off, and will not hear to his entreaties.
D. 'En revenant de la jolie Rochelle,' twelve two-line stanzas, Gagnon, Chansons populaires du Canada, p. 155. A cavalier meets three fair maids, mounts the fairest behind him, and rides a hundred leagues without speaking to her, at the end of which she asks to drink. He takes her to a spring, but when there she does not care to drink. The rest of the ballad is pointless, and shows that the original story has been completely forgotten.
E. 'Belle, allons nous épromener,' from the Lyonnais, 28 vv, Champfleury, Chansons des Provinces, p. 172, is like C, but still more defective. The pair go to walk by "la mer courante." There is no order for the lady to strip: on the contrary, she cries, Déshabillez-moi, déchaussez-moi! and, while the man is drawing off her shoe, "la belle avance un coup de pied, le beau galant tombe dans l'eau."
F. 'Allons, mie, nous promener,' 32 vv, Poésies populaires de la France, manuscript, III, fol. 84, No 16, is like C. The lady asks the man to pull off her shoes before he kills her. The man clutches a branch; the woman cuts it away.
G. 'Le Traître Noyé,' Chants pop. du Velay et du Forez, Romania, X, 199, is like E, F.
H. 'La Fillette et le Chevalier,' Victor Smith, Chants pop. du Velay et du Forez, Romania, X, 198, resembles the common Polish ballad. Pierre rouses his love early in the morning, to take a ride with him. He mounts her on his horse, and when they come to a lonesome wood bids her alight, for it is the last of her days. He plunges his sword into her heart, and throws her into a river. Her father and mother come searching for her, and are informed of her fate by a shepherdess, who had witnessed the murder. The youngest of her three brothers plunges into the water, exclaiming, Who threw you in? An angel descends, and tells him it was her lover. A less romantic version, described in a note, treats of a valet who is tired of an amour with a servant-girl. He is judicially condemned to be hanged or burned.
'La Fille de Saint-Martin de l'Ile,' Bujeaud, II, 226, has the conclusion of the third class of German ballads. A mother incites her son to make away with his wife. He carries her off on his horse to a wheat-field [wood], and kills her with sword and dagger. Returning, he meets his wife's brother, who asks why his shoes are covered with blood. He says he has been killing rabbits. The brother replies, I see by your paleness that you have been killing my sister. So Gérard de Nerval, Les Filles du Feu, Œuvres Com., V, 134, and La Boheme galante (1866), p. 79: 'Rosine,' Chants pop. du Velay, etc., Romania, X, 197.
The ballad is known over all North Italy, and always nearly in one shape.
A. 'Monchisa,' sixty-four short verses, Bernoni, Canti popolari veneziani, Puntata v, No 2. A count's son asks Monchesa, a knight's daughter, in marriage in the evening, espouses her in the morning, and immediately carries her off. When they are "half-way," she heaves a sigh, which she says is for father and mother, whom she shall no more see. The count points out his castle; he has taken thirty-six maids there, robbed them of their honor, and cut off their heads. "So will I do with you when we are there." The lady says no word till she is asked why she is silent; then requests the count to lend her his sword; she wishes to cut a branch to shade her horse. The moment she gets the sword in her hand, she plunges it into his heart; then throws the body into a ditch. On her way back, she meets her brother, whom she tells that she is looking after the assassins who have killed her husband. He fears it was she; this she denies, but afterwards says she must go to Rome to confess a great sin. There she obtains prompt absolution.
B. 'La Figlia del Conte,' Adolf Wolf, Volkslieder aus Venetien, No 73, a, 34 vv, b, 48 vv. Here it is the daughter of a count that marries Malpreso, the son of a knight. He takes her to France immediately. She goes sixty miles (b) without speaking. She confesses to her brother what she has done.
C. Righi, Canti popolari veronesi, 58 vv, No 94*, p. 30. The count's son marries Mampresa, a knight's daughter. For thirty-six miles she does not speak; after five more she sighs. She denies to her brother having killed her husband, but still says she must go to the pope to confess an old sin; then owns what she has done.
D. 'La Monferrina,' 48 vv, Nigra, Canzoni popolari del Piemonte, in Rivista Contemporanea, XXIV, 76. The lady is a Monferrina, daughter of a knight. After the marriage they travel fifty miles without speaking to one another. Fifty-two Monferrine have losf their heads; the bridegroom does not say why. She goes to the Pope to confess.
E. 'La Vendicatrice,' an incomplete copy from Alexandria, 18 vv only, Marcoaldi, Canti popolari, No 12, p. 166, like D, as far as it goes. Thirty-three have been beheaded before.
F. 'La Inglese,' 40 vv, Ferraro, Canti popolari di Ferrara, Cento e Pontelagoscuro, No 2, p. 14. The count's son marries an English girl, daughter of a knight. She never speaks for more than three hundred miles; after two hundred more she sighs. She denies having killed her husband; has not a heart of that kind.
G. 'La Liberatrice,' 24 vv, Ferraro, Canti popolari monferrini, No 3, p. 4. Gianfleisa is the lady's name. When invited to go off, she says, If you wish me to go, lend me a horse. Not a word is spoken for five hundred miles. The man (Gilardu) points out his castle, and says that no one he has taken there has ever come back. Gianfleisa goes home without meeting anybody.
'Laura,' Ferraro, C. p. di Pontelagoscuro, Rivista di Filologia romanza, II, 197, and C. p. di Ferrara, etc., p. 86, is a mixture of this ballad with another. Cf. 'La Maledetta,' Ferraro, C. p. monferrini, No 27, p. 35.
Several other French and Italian ballads have common points with Renauld, Monchisa, etc., and for this have sometimes been improperly grouped with them: e.g., 'La Fille des Sables,' Bujeaud, II, 177 ff. A girl sitting by the water-side hears a sailor sing, and asks him to teach her the song. He says, Come aboard, and I will. He pushes off, and by and by she begins to weep. [47] She says, My father is calling me to supper. "You will sup with me." "My mother is calling me to bed." "You will sleep with me." They go a hundred leagues, and not a word said, and at last reach his father's castle. When she is undressing, her lace gets into a knot. He suggests that his sword would cut it. She plunges the sword into her heart. So 'Du Beau Marinier,' Beaurepaire, p. 57 f, and Poésies populaires de la France, manuscript, III, fol. 59, No 4; 'L'Épée Liberatrice,' V. Smith, Chansons du Velay, etc., Romania, VII, 69, nearly; also 'Il Corsaro,' Nigra, Rivista Contemporanea, XXIV, p. 86 ff. In 'La Monferrina Incontaminata,' Ferraro, C. p. m., No 2, p. 3, a French knight invites a girl to go off with him, and mounts her behind him. They ride five hundred miles without speaking, then reach an inn, after which the story is the same. So Bernoni, Puntata IX, No 2. 'La Fille du Patissier,' Paymaigre, No 30, p. 93, has the same conclusion. All these, except 'La Fille des Sables,' make the girl ask for the sword herself, and in all it is herself that she kills.
The Spanish preserves this ballad in a single form, the earliest printed in any language, preceding, by a few years, even the German broadsides G, H.
'Romance de Rico Franco,' 36 vv, "Cancionero de Romances, s. a., fol. 191: Canc. de Rom., ed. de 1550, fol. 202: ed. de 1555, fol. 296; "Wolf and Hofmann, Primavera, No 119, II, 22: Duran, No 296, I, 160: Grimm, p. 252: Depping and Galiano, 1844, II, 167: Ochoa, p. 7. The king's huntsmen got no game, and lost the falcons. They betook themselves to the castle of Maynes, where was a beautiful damsel, sought by seven counts and three kings. Rico Franco of Aragon carried her off by force. Nothing is said of a rest in a wood, or elsewhere; but that something has dropped out here is shown by the corresponding Portuguese ballad. The lady wept. Rico Franco comforted her thus: If you are weeping for father and mother, you shall never see them more; and if for your brothers, I have killed them all three. I am not weeping for them, she said, but because I know not what my fate is to be. Lend me your knife to cut the fringes from my mantle, for they are no longer fit to wear. This Rico Franco did, and the damsel thrust the knife into his breast. Thus she avenged father, mother, and brothers.
A Portuguese ballad has recently been obtained from tradition in the island of St. George, Azores, which resembles the Spanish closely, but is even curter: A, 'Romance de Dom Franco,' 30 vv; B, 'Dona Inez,' a fragment of 18 vv; Braga, Cantos populares do Archipelago açoriano, No 48, p. 316, No 49, p. 317: Hartung's Romanceiro, II, 61, 63. Dona Inez was so precious in the eyes of her parents that they gave her neither to duke nor marquis. A knight who was passing [the Duke of Turkey, B] took a fancy to her, and stole her away. When they came to the middle of the mountain ridge on which Dona Inez lived, the knight stopped to rest, and she be gan to weep. From this point Portuguese A, and B so far as it is preserved, agree very nearly with the Spanish.[48]
Certain Breton ballads have points of contact with the Halewyn-Ulinger class, but, like the French and Italian ballads mentioned on the preceding page, have more important divergences, and especially the characteristic distinction that the woman kills herself to preserve her honor.
1. 'Jeanne Le Roux,' Luzel, I, 324 ff, in two versions; Poésies pop. de la France, manuscript, III, fol. 182. The sieur La Tremblaie attempts the abduction of Jeanne from the church immediately after her marriage ceremony. As he is about to compel her to get up on the crupper of his horse, she asks for a knife to cut her bridal girdle, which had been drawn too tight. He gives her the choice of three, and she stabs herself in the heart. La Tremblaie remarks, I have carried off eighteen young brides, and Jeanne is the nineteenth, words evidently taken from the mouth of a Halewyn, and not belonging here.
2. Le Marquis de Coatredrez, Luzel, I, 336 ff, meets a young girl on the road, going to the pardon of Guéodet, and forces her on to his horse. On the way and at his house she vainly implores help. He takes her to the garden to gather flowers. She asks for his knife to shorten the stems, and kills herself. Early in the morning the door of the château is broken in by Kerninon, foster-brother of the victim, who forces Coatredrez to fight, and runs him through.
3. 'Rozmelchon,' Luzel, I, 308 ff, in three versions, and,
4. 'La Filleule de du Guesclin,' Villemarqué, Barzaz-Breiz, 6th ed., 212 ff, are very like 2. The wicked Rozmelchon is burned in his château in Luzel's first copy; the other two do not bring him to punishment. Villemarqué's villain is an Englishman, and has his head cloven by du Guesclin.
5. 'Marivonnic,' Luzel, I, 350 ff., a pretty young girl, is carried off by an English vessel, the captain of which shows himself not a whit behind the feudal seigneurs in ferocity. The young girl throws herself into the water.
Magyar
Five versions from recent traditions, all of them interesting, are given in Arany and Gyulai's collection of Hungarian popular poetry, 'Molnár Anna,' I, 137 ff, Nos 1-5.[49] — A, p. 141, No 3. A man, nameless here, but called in the other versions Martin Ajgó, or Martin Sajgó, invites Anna Miller to go off with him. She refuses; she has a young child and a kind husband. "Come," he says; "I have six palaces, and will put you in the seventh," and persists so long that he prevails at last. They went a long way, till they came to the middle of a green wood. He asked her to sit down in the shade of a branchy tree (so all); he would lie in her lap, and she was to look into his head (a point found in all the copies). But look not up into the tree, he said. He went to sleep (so B, D); she looked up into the tree, and saw six fair maids hanging there (so all but E). She thought to herself, He will make me the seventh! (also B, D). A tear fell on the face of the "brave sir," and waked him. You have looked up into the tree, he said. "No, but three orphans passed, and I thought of my child." He bade her go up into the tree. She was not used to go first, she said. He led the way. She seized the opportunity, tore his sword from its sheath (so C), and hewed off his head. She then wrapped herself in his cloak, sprang upon his horse, and returned home, where (in all the copies, as in this) she effected a reconcilement with her husband. B, p. 138, No 2, agrees closely with the foregoing. Martin Ajgó calls to Anna Miller to come with him a long way into the wilderness (so D, E). He boasts of no palaces in this version. He calls Anna a long time, tempts her a long time, drags her on to his horse, and carries her off. The scene under the tree is repeated. Anna pretends (so D, E) that the tear which drops on Martin's face is dew from the tree, and he retorts, How can it be dew from the tree, when the time is high noon? His sword falls out of its sheath as he is mounting the tree, and he asks her to hand it to him. She throws it up (so E), and it cuts his throat in two. Rightly served, Martin Ajgó, she says: why did you lure me from home? C, p. 144, No 4. Martin Sajgó tells Anna Miller that he has six stone castles, and is building a seventh. It is not said that he goes to sleep. As in A, Anna pulls his sword from the scabbard. D, p. 146, No 5. Here reappears the very important feature of the wonderland: "Come, let us go, Anna Miller, a long journey into the wilderness, to a place that flows with milk and honey." Anna insists, as before, that Martin shall go up the tree first. He puts down his sword; she seizes it, and strikes off his head with one blow. E, p. 137, No 1, is somewhat defective, but agrees essentially with the others. Martin Ajgó calls Anna; she will not come; he carries her off. He lets his sword fall as he is climbing, and asks Anna to hand it up to him. She throws it up, as in B, and it cuts his back in two.
Neus, in his Ehstnische Volkslieder, maintains the affinity of 'Kallewisohnes Tod,' No 2, p. 5, with the Ulinger ballads, and even of his Holepi with the Dutch Halewyn. The resemblance is of the most distant, and what there is must be regarded as casual. The same of the Finnish 'Kojoins Sohn,' Schröter, Finnische Runen, p. 114, 115; 'Kojosen Poika,' Lönnrot, Kanteletar, p. 279.
In places where a ballad has once been known, the story will often be remembered after the verses have been wholly or partly forgotten, and the ballad will be resolved into a prose tale, retaining, perhaps, some scraps of verse, and not infrequently taking up new matter, or blending with other traditions. Naturally enough, a ballad and an equivalent tale sometimes exist side by side. It has already been mentioned that Jamieson, who had not found this ballad in Scotland, had often come upon the story in the form of a tale interspersed with verse. Birlinger at one time (1860) had not been able to obtain the ballad in the Swabian Oberland (where it has since been found in several forms), but only a story agreeing essentially with the second class of German ballads. According to this tradition, a robber, who was at the same time a portentous magician, enticed the twelve daughters of a miller, one after another, into a wood, and hanged eleven of them on a tree, but was arrested by a hunter, the brother of the twelve, before he could dispatch the last, and was handed over to justice. The object of the murders was to obtain blood for magical purposes. This story had, so to speak, naturalized itself in the locality, and the place where the robber's house had been and that where the tree had stood were pointed out. The hunter-brother was by some conceived of as the Wild Huntsman, and came to the rescue through the air with a fearful baying of dogs. (Birlinger in Volksthümliches aus Schwaben, I, 368, No 592, and Germania, 1st Ser., V, 372.)
The story of the German ballad P has attached itself to localities in the neighborhood of Weissenbach, Aargau, and is told with modifications that connect it with the history of the Guggi-, or Schongauer-, bad. A rich man by lewd living had become a leper. The devil put it into his head that he could be cured by bathing in the blood of twelve [seven] pure maidens. He seized eleven at a swoop, while they were on their way to church, and hanged them, and the next day enticed away a miller's daughter, who was delivered from death as in the ballad. A medicinal spring rose near the fatal tree. (Rochholz, I, 22.) No pure version of this ballad has been obtained in the Harz region, though a mixed form has already been spoken of; but 'Der Reiter in Seiden,' Pröhle, Märchen für die Jugend, No 32, p. 136, which comes from the western Harz, or from some place further north, on the line between Kyffhaüser and Hamburg, is, roughly speaking, only 'Gert Olbert' turned into prose, with a verse or two remaining. 'Der betrogene Betrüger,' from Mühlbach, Müller's Siebenbürgische Sagen, No 418, p. 309, has for its hero a handsome young man, addicted to women, who obtains from the devil the power of making them follow his piping, on the terms that every twelfth soul is to be the devil's share. He had taken eleven to a wood, and hanged them on a tree after he had satisfied his desire. The brother of a twelfth substituted himself for his sister, dressed in her clothes, snatched the rope from the miscreant, and ran him up on the nearest bough; upon which a voice was heard in the wind, that cried The twelfth soul is mine. Grundtvig, in his Engelske og skotske Folkeviser, p. 249, gives his recollections of a story that he had heard in his youth which has a catastrophe resembling that of English C-F. A charcoal burner had a way of taking up women beside him on his wagon, and driving them into a wood, where he forced them to take off their clothes, then killed them, and sunk them with heavy stones in a deep moss. At last a girl whom he had carried off in this way got the advantage of him by inducing him to turn away while she was undressing, and then pushing him into the moss. Something similar is found in the conclusion of a robber story in Grundtvig's Danske Folkeminder, 1861, No 30, p. 108, and in a modern Danish ballad cited in Danmarks gamle Folkeviser, IV, 24, note.*
Another Transylvanian tale, Schuster, p. 433, has a fountain, a thirsty bride, and doves (two or three) that sing to her, traits which have perhaps been derived from some Ulinger ballad; but the fountain is of an entirely different character, and the doves serve a different purpose. The tale is a variety of 'Fitchers Vogel,' Grimms, No 46, and belongs to the class of stories to which Bluebeard,' from its extensive popularity, has given name. The magician of 'Fitcher's Vogel' and of 'Bluebeard' becomes, or remains, a preternatural being (a hill-man) further north, as in Grundtvig's Gamle danske Minder, 1857, No 312, p. 182. There is a manifest affinity between these three species of tales and our ballad (also between the German and Danish tales and the Scandinavian ballad of 'Rosmer'), but the precise nature of this affinity it is impossible to expound. 'Bluebeard,' 'La Barbe Bleue,' Perrault, Histoires ou Contes du temps passé, 1697, p. 57 (Lefèvre), has a special resemblance to the German ballads of the second class in the four calls to sister Anne, which represent the cries to father, mother, and brother, and agrees with these ballads as to the means by which the death of the malefactor is brought about.
Looking back now over the whole field covered by this ballad, we observe that the framework of the story is essentially the same in English, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian; in the first class of the German ballads; in Polish A; in French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and Magyar. The woman delivers herself from death by some artifice, [50] and retaliates upon the man the destruction he had intended for her. The second form of the German ballad attributes the deliverance of the woman to her brother, and also the punishment of the murderer. The third form of the German ballad makes the woman lose her life, and her murderer, for the most part, to suffer the penalty of the law, though in some cases the brother takes immediate vengeance. Polish B-K may be ranked with the second German class, and O-CC still better with the third; but the brother appears in only a few of these, and, when he appears, counts for nothing. The Wendish and the Bohemian ballad have the incident of fraternal vengeance, though otherwise less like the German. The Servian ballad, a slight thing at best, is still less like, but ranks with the third German class. The oldest Icelandic copy is altogether anomalous, and also incomplete, but seems to imply the death of the woman: later copies suffer the woman to escape, without vengeance upon the murderer.
It is quite beyond question that the third class of German ballad is a derivation from the second.[51] Of the versions T-Z, Z alone has preserved clear traits of the marvellous. A king's daughter is enticed from home by Ulrich's singing, and is warned of her impending fate by the dove, as in Class II. The other ballads have the usual marks of degeneracy, a dropping or obscuring of marvellous and romantic incidents, and a declension in the rank and style of the characters. T, to be sure, has a hazel, and Y a tree-stump and a spring, and in T Ulrich offers to teach Ánnchen bird-song, but these traits have lost all significance. Knight and lady sink to ordinary man and maid; for though in Y the woman is called a king's daughter, the opening stanzas of Y are borrowed from a different ballad. Ulrich retains so much of the knight that he rides to Ännchen's house, in the first stanza of T, but he apparently goes on foot with her to the wood, and this is the rule in all the other ballads of this class. As Ulrich has lost his horse, so the brother, in T, U, V, X, has lost his sword, or the use of it, and in all these (also, superfluously, in W) Ulrich, like a common felon as he was, is broken on the wheel.
That the woman should save her life by her own craft and courage is certainly a more primitive conception than that she should depend upon her brother, and the priority of this arrangement of the plot is supported, if not independently proved, by the concurrence, as to this point, of so many copies among so many nations, as also by the accordance of various popular tales. The second German form must therefore, so far forth, be regarded as a modification of the first. Among the several devices, again, which the woman employs in order to get the murderer into her power, the original would seem to be her inducing him to lay his head in her lap, which gives her the opportunity (by the use of charms or runes, in English A, Danish G, Norwegian F, H, and one form of B) to put him into a deep sleep. The success of this trick no doubt implies considerable simplicity on the part of the victim of it; not more, however, than is else where witnessed in preternatural beings, whose wits are frequently represented as ho match for human shrewdness. Some of the Scandinavian ballads are not liable to the full force of this objection, whatever that may be, for they make the knight express a suspicion of treachery, and the lady solemnly asseverate that she will not kill [fool, beguile] him in his sleep. And so, when he is fast bound, she cries out, Wake up, for I will not kill thee in thy sleep! This last circumstance is wanting in hardly any of the Scandinavian ballads, where as the previous compact is found only in Danish E, F, G, H, L, Swedish A, Norwegian A, and the Icelandic ballad. Not occurring in any of the older Danish copies, it may be that the compact is an after-thought, and was inserted to qualify the improbability. But the lady's equivocation is quite of a piece with Memering's oath in 'Ravengaard and Memering,' Grundtvig, No 13, and King Dietrich's in the Dietrichsaga, linger, c. 222, p. 206.[52]
English A and all the Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian ballads employ the stratagem of lulling the man to sleep, but these are not the only ballads in which the man lays his head in the woman's lap. This trait is observed in nearly all German ballads of the second and third class, in all the well-preserved ones, and also in the Magyar ballad. With regard to the German ballads, however, it is purposeless (for it does not advance the action of the drama in the least), and must be regarded as a relic of an earlier form.[53] English B-F and all the French ballads dispose of the traitor by a watery death. The scene is shifted from a wood to a sea-coast pool, or river bank, perhaps to suit the locality to which the ballad had wandered. In English B, where, apparently under the influence of other ballads,[54] the lady is forced to wade into water up to her chin, the knight is pushed off his horse when bending over to give a last kiss for which he had been asked; in English C-F and French A, B, the man is induced to turn his face to save the woman's modesty; in French C-E he is made to pull off her stockings or shoes, and then, while off his guard, pitched into a sea or river. This expedient is sufficiently trivial; but still more so, and grazing on the farcical, is that which is made use of in the Dutch ballad and those of the German first class, the woman's persuading the man to take off his fine coat lest it should be spattered with her blood, and cutting off his head with his own sword while he is thus occupied. The Spanish and Portuguese ballads make the lady borrow the knight's knife to remove some of the trimming of her dress, and in the Italian she borrows his sword to cut a bough to shade her horse; for in Italian the halt in the wood is completely forgotten, and the last half of the action takes place on horseback. All these contrivances plainly have less claim to be regarded as primary than that of binding the murderer after he has been put to sleep.
The knight in English A is called an Elf, and as such is furnished with an enchanting horn, which is replaced by a harp of similar properties in B, where, however, the male personage has neither name nor any kind of designation. The elf-horn of English A is again represented by the seductive song of the Dutch ballad and of German G-R and Z. Though the lady is not lured away in the Scandinavian ballads by irresistible music, [55] Danish A, B, Norwegian A, E, and Swedish D present to her the prospect of being taken to an elf-land, or elysium, and there are traces of this in Danish G and D also, and in Polish Q. The tongue that talks after the head is off, in the Dutch ballad and in German A, B, C, E, is another mark of an unearthly being. Halewyn, Ulver, Gert Olbert, like the English knight, are clearly supernatural, though of a nondescript type. The elf in English A is not to be interpreted too strictly, for the specific elf is not of a sanguinary turn, as these so conspicuously are. He is comparatively innocuous, like the hill-man Young Akin, in another English ballad, who likewise entices away a woman by magical music, but only to make her his wife. But the elf-knight and the rest seem to delight in bloodshed for its own sake; for, as Grundtvig has pointed out, there is no other apparent motive for murder in English A, B, the Norwegian ballads, Danish A, Swedish A, B, or German A-E. [56] This is true again, for one reason or another, of others of the German ballads, of the French, of most of the Italian, and of the Hungarian ballads.
The nearest approach to the Elf-knight, Halewyn, etc., is perhaps Quintalin, in the saga of Samson the Fair. He was son of the miller Galin. Nobody knew who his mother was, but many were of the mind that Galin might have had him of a "goddess," an elf or troll woman, who lived under the mill force. He was a thief, and lay in the woods; was versed in many knave's tricks, and had also acquired agreeable arts. He was a great master of the harp, and would decoy women into the woods with his playing, keep them as long as he liked, and send them home pregnant to their fathers or husbands. A king's daughter, Valentina, is drawn on by his music deep into the woods, but is rescued by a friendly power. Some parts of her dress and ornaments, which she had laid off in her rapid following up of the harping, are afterwards found, with a great quantity of precious things, in the subaqueous cave of Quintalin's mother, who is a complete counterpart to Grendel's, and was probably borrowed from Beówulf.[57] This demi-elf Quintalin is a tame personage by the side of Grendel or of Halewyn. Halewyn does not devour his victims, like Grendel: Quintalin does not even murder his. He allures women with his music to make them serve his lust. We may infer that he would plunder them, for he is a notorious thief. Even two of the oldest Danish ballads, B, C, and again Danish I and Swedish C, make the treacherous knight as lecherous as bloody, and so with German J, K, L, O, P, Q, R, S, and Italian A, B, C, E, F. This trait is wanting in Danish D, where, though traces of the originally demonic nature of the knight remain, the muckle gold of the maids already appears as the motive for the murders. In the later Danish E-H, K, L, and Swedish C, D, the original elf or demon has sunk to a remorseless robber, generally with brothers, sisters, or underlings for accomplices. [58] This is preëminently his character in English C-F, in nearly all the forty Polish ballads, and in the two principal ballads of the German second class, G, H, though English D, German H, and Polish Q retain a trace of the supernatural: the first in the charm by means of which the knight compels the maid to quit her parents, the second in the bloody spring, and the last in the golden mountains. There is nothing that unequivocally marks the robber in the other German ballads of the second class and in those of the third. The question 'Weinst du um deines Vaters Gut?' in I-L, O-S, T-W, is hardly decisive, and only in W and Z is it expressly said that the maid had taken valuable things with her (as in Swedish D, Norwegian A, B, English D-F). J-L, O-S, give us to understand that the lady had lost her honor,[59] but in all the rest, except the anomalous Z, the motive for murder is insufficient.[60]
The woman in these ballads is for the most part nameless, or bears a stock name to which no importance can be attached. Not so with the names of the knight. Most of these are peculiar, and the Northern ones, though superficially of some variety, have yet likeness enough to tempt one to seek for a common original. Grundtvig, with considerable diffidence, suggests Oldemor as a possible ground-form. He conceives that the R of some of the Scandinavian names may be a relic of a foregoing Herr. The initial H would easily come or go. Given such a name as Hollemen (Danish C), we might expect it to give place to Halewyn, which is both a family and a local name in Flanders, if the ballad should pass into the Low Countries from Denmark, a derivation that Grundtvig is far from asserting. So Ulinger, a local appellation, might be substituted for the Ulver of Danish A. Grundtvig, it must be borne in mind, declines to be responsible for the historical correctness of this genealogy, and would be still less willing to undertake an explanation of the name Oldemor.
In place of Oldemor, Professor Sophus Bugge, in a recent article, marked by his characteristic sharp-sightedness and ingenuity, has proposed Hollevern, Holevern, or Olevern as the base-form of all the Northern names for the bloody knight, and he finds in this name a main support for the entirely novel and somewhat startling hypothesis that the ballad we are dealing with is a wild shoot from the story of Judith and Holofernes.[61] His argument, given as briefly as possible, is as follows.
That the Bible story was generally known in the Middle Ages no one would question. It was treated in a literary way by an Anglo-Saxon poet, who was acquainted with the scriptural narrative, and in a popular way by poets who had no direct acquaintance with the original.[62] The source of the story in the ballad must in any case be a tradition many times removed from the biblical story; that much should be changed, much dropped, and much added is only what would be expected.
Beginning the comparison with 'Judith' with this caution, it is first submitted that Holofernes can be recognized in most of the Scandinavian and German names of the knight. The v of the proposed base-form is preserved in Ulver, Halewyn, and probably in the English Elf-knight. It is easy to explain a v's passing over to g, as in Ulinger, Adelger, and especially under the influence of the very common names in -ger. Again, v might easily become b, as in Olbert, or m, as in Hollemen, Olmor; and the initial R of Rulleman, Romor, etc., may have been carried over from a prefixed Herr. [63]
The original name of the heroine has been lost, and yet it is to be noticed that Gert Olbert's mother, in German A, is called Fru Jutte.
The heroine in this same ballad is named Helena (Linnich in F); in others (German C, D, E), Odilia. These are names of saints, and this circumstance may tend to show that the woman in the ballad was originally conceived of as rather a saint than a secular character, though in the course of time the story has so changed that the devout widow who sought out her country's enemy in his own camp has been transformed into a young maid who is enticed from home by a treacherous suitor.
It is an original trait in the ballad that the murderer, as is expressly said in many copies, is from a foreign land. According to an English version (E), he comes from the north, as Holofernes does, "venit Assur ex montibus ab aquilone" (Jud. xvi, 5).
The germ of this outlandish knight's blood-thirstiness is found in the truculent part that Holofernes plays in the Bible, his threats and devastations. That the false suitor appears without companions is in keeping with the ballad style of representation; yet we might find suggestions of the Assyrian's army in the swains, the brothers, the stable-boy, whom the maid falls in with on her way home.
The splendid promises made in many of the ballads might have been developed from the passage where Holofernes, whose bed is described as wrought with purple, gold, and precious stones, says to Judith, Thou shalt be great in the house of Nebuchadnezzar, and thy name shall be named in all the earth (xi, 21).
In many forms of the ballad, especially the Dutch and the German, the maid adorns her self splendidly, as Judith does: she even wears some sort of crown in Dutch A 16, German D 8, as Judith does in x, 3, xvi, 10 (mitram).
In the English D, E, F, the oldest Danish, A, and the Polish versions, the maid, like Judith, leaves her home in the night.
The Piedmontese casté, Italian E 1 [there is a castle in nearly all the Italian ballads, and also in Dutch B], may remind us of Holefernes' castra.
The knight's carrying off the maid, lifting her on to his horse in many copies, may well come from a misunderstanding of elevaverunt in Judith x, 20: Et cum in faciem ejus intendisset, adoravit eum, prosternens se super terram. Et elevaverunt eam servi Holofernis, jubente domino suo.[64]
In German A Gert Olbert and Helena are said to ride three days and nights, and in Danish D the ride is for three days; and we may remember that Judith killed Holofernes the fourth day after her arrival in his camp.
The place in which the pair alight is, according to German G 20, a deep dale, and this agrees with the site of Holofernes' camp in the valley of Bethulia. There is a spring or stream in many of the ballads, and also a spring in the camp, in which Judith bathes (xii, 7).
Most forms of the ballad make the knight, after the halt, inform the maid that she is to die, as many maids have before her in the same place; e.g., German G 7:
'Der Ulinger hat eylff Jungfrawen gehangen,
Die zwölfft hat er gefangen.' [65]
This corresponds with the passage in Judith's song (xvi, 6), Dixit se ... infantes meos dare in prædam et virgenes in captivitatem: but it is reasonable to suppose that the ballad follows some version of the Bible words that varied much from the original. The incident of the maid's lousing and tousing her betrayer's hair, while he lies with his head in her lap, may have come from Judith seizing Holofernes by the hair before she kills him, but the story of Samson and Delilah may have had influence here.
According to many German versions, the murderer grants the maid three cries before she dies. She invokes Jesus, Mary, and her brother. Or she utters three sighs, the first to God the Father, the second to Jesus, the third to her brother. These cries or sighs seem to take the place of Judith's prayer, Confirma me, Domine Deus Israel (xiii, 7), and it may also be well to remember that Holofernes granted Judith, on her request, permission to go out in the night to pray.
The Dutch, Low-German, Scandinavian, and other versions agree in making the woman kill the knight with his own sword, as in Judith. The Dutch and Low-German [also Danish F, Swedish A] have preserved an original trait in making the maid hew off the murderer's head. English and French versions dispose of the knight differently: the maid pushes him into sea or river. Perhaps, in some older form of the story, after the head was cut off, the trunk was pushed into the water: cf. Judith xiii, 10: Abscidit caput ejus et ... evolvit corpus ejus truncum. The words apprehendit comam capitis ejus (xiii, 9) have their parallel in Dutch A, 33: "Zy nam bet hoofd al by het haer." The Dutch ballad makes the maid carry the head with her.
"Singing and ringing" she rode through the wood: Judith sings a song of praise to the Lord after her return home.
In English C-F, May Colven comes home before dawn, as Judith does. The Dutch A says, When to her father's gate she came, she blew the horn like a man. Compare Judith xiii, 13: Et dixit Judith a longe custodibus murorum, Aperite portas!
The Dutch text goes on to say that when the father heard the horn he was delighted at his daughter's return: and Judith v, 14, Et factum est, cum audissent viri vocem ejus, vocaverunt presbyteros civitatis.
The conclusion of Dutch A is that there was a banquet held, and the head was set on the table. 'So Judith causes Holofernes' head to be hung up on the city wall, and after the enemy have been driven off, the Jews hold a feast.
The Icelandic version, though elsewhere much mutilated, has a concluding stanza which certainly belongs to the ballad:
Ása went into a holy cell,
Never did she harm to man.
This agrees with the view taken of the heroine of the ballad as a saint, and with the Bible account that Judith lived a chaste widow after her husband's demise.
Danish D is unique in one point. The robber has shown the maid a little knoll, in which the "much gold" of the women he has murdered lies. When she has killed him, the maid says, "I shall have the much gold," and takes as much as she can carry off. Compare with this Holofernes putting Judith into his treasury (xii, 1),[66] her carrying off the conopœum (xiii, 10), and her receiving from the people all Holofernes' gold, silver, clothes, jewels, and furniture, as her share of the plunder of the Assyrian camp (xv, 14). It is, perhaps, a perversion of this circumstance that the robber in German G, H, is refused per mission to keep his costly clothes.
English D seems also to have preserved a portion of the primitive story, when it makes the maid tell her parents in the morning all that has happened, whereupon they go with her to the sea-shore to find the robber's body. The foundation for this is surely the Bible account that Judith makes known her act to the elders of the city, and that the Jews go out in the morning and fall on the enemy's camp, in which Holofernes' body is lying. In Swedish C the robber's sisters mourn over his body, and in Judith xiv, 18 the Assyrians break out into loud cries when they learn of Holofernes' death.
In all this it is simply contended that the story of Judith is the remote source of the ballad, and it is conceded that many of the correspondences which have been cited may be accidental. Neither the Latin text of Judith nor any other written treatment of the story of Judith is supposed to have been known to the author of the ballad. The knowledge of its biblical origin being lost, the story would develop itself in its own way, according to the fashion of oral tradition. And so the pious widow into whose hands God gave over his enemies is converted into a fair maid who is enticed by a false knight into a wood, and who kills him in defence of her own life.
A similar transformation can be shown elsewhere in popular poetry. The little Katie of certain northern ballads (see Grundtvig, No 101) is a maid among other maids who prefers death to dishonor; but was originally Saint Catherine, daughter of the king of Egypt, who suffered martyrdom for the faith under the Emperor Maxentius. All the versions of the Halewyn ballad which we possess, even the purest, may be far removed from the primitive, both as to story and as to metrical form. New features would be taken up, and old ones would disappear. One copy has preserved genuine particulars, which another has lost, but Dutch tradition has kept the capital features best of all. [67]
Professor Bugge's argument has been given with an approach to fulness out of a desire to do entire justice to the distinguished author's case, though most of the correspondences adduced by him fail to produce any effect upon my mind.
The case is materially strengthened by the Dutch text C ('Roland'), which was not accessible at the time Bugge's paper was written. The name Roland is not so close to Holofern as Halewyn, but is still within the range of conceivable metamorphosis. The points of coincidence between Dutch C and the story of Judith are these: The woman, first making an elaborate toilet,[68] goes out to seek the man, who is spoken of as surrounded with soldiers; she is challenged on the way; finds Roland lying on his bed, which he proposes she shall share (or lose her life);[69] she cuts off his head, which, after her return home, she exposes from her window.[70]
If this was the original form of the Dutch ballad, and the Dutch ballad is the source from which all the other ballads have come, by processes of dropping, taking up, and transforming, then we may feel compelled to admit that this ballad might be a wild shoot from the story of Judith. Any one who bears in inind the strange changes which stories undergo will hesitate to pronounce this impossible. What poor Ophelia says of us human creatures is even truer of ballads: "We know what we are, but know not what we may be."
But when we consider how much would have to be dropped, how much to be taken up, and how much to be transformed, before the Hebrew "gest" could be converted into the European ballad, we naturally look for a less difficult hypothesis. It is a supposition at tended with less difficulty that an independent European tradition existed of a half-human, half-demonic being, who possessed an irresistible power of decoying away young maids, and was wont to kill them after he got them into his hands, but who at last found one who was more than his match, and lost his own life through her craft and courage. A modification of this story is afforded by the large class of Bluebeard tales. The Quintalin story seems to be another variety, with a substitution of lust for bloodthirst. The Dutch ballad may have been affected by some lost ballad of Holofern, and may have taken up some of its features, at least that of carrying home Halewyn's [Roland's] head, which is found in no other version. [71]
A a is translated by Grundtvig in Engelske og skotske Folkeviser, No 37, p. 230: B b in the same, No 36, p. 227: C a, b, D a, b, blended, No 35, p. 221. A, by Rosa Warrens, Schottische V. L. der Vorzeit, No 1, p. 1: Gerhard, p. 15. C b, by Rosa Warrens, No 34, p. 148: Wolf, Halle der Völker, I, 38, Hausschatz, 225. C, D, etc., as in Ailingham, p. 244, by Knortz, Lied. u. Rom. Alt-Englands, No 4, p. 14.
Footnotes:
1. 'The Elfin Knight' begins very much like A, but perhaps has borrowed its opening stanzas from this ballad. See page 13.
2. The second stanza, which describes the harping, occurs again in 'Glenkindie' (st. 6).
3. Perhaps the change from wood, A, to water, B-F, was made under the influence of some Merman ballad, or by admixture with such a ballad; e. g., 'Nøkkens Svig,' Grundtvig, No 39. In this (A) the nix entices a king's daughter away from a dance, sets her on his horse, and rides with her over the heath to a wild water, into which she sinks. It is also quite among possibilities that there was originally an English nix ballad, in which the king's daughter saved herself by some artifice, not, of course, such as is employed in B-F, but like that in A, or otherwise. Maid Heiemo, in Landstad, No 39, kills a nix with "one of her small knives." Had she put him to sleep with a charm, and killed him with his own knife, as Lady Isabel does, there would have been nothing to shock credibility in the story.
Aytoun, Ballads of Scotland, I, 219, 2d ed., hastily pronounces Buchan's ballad not authentic, "being made up of stanzas borrowed from versions of 'Burd Helen' ['Child Waters']." There are, indeed, three successive steps into the water in both ballads, but Aytoun should have bethought himself how natural and how common it is for a passage to slip from one ballad into another, when the circumstances of the story are the same; and in some such cases no one can say where the verses that are common originally belonged. Here, indeed, as Grundtvig remarks, IV, 7, note*, it may well be that the verses in question belonged originally to 'Burd Helen,' and were adopted (but in the processes of tradition) into 'The Water of Wearie's Well;' for it must be admitted that the transaction in the water is not a happy conception in the latter, since it shocks probability that the woman should be able to swim ashore, and the man not.
4. "This ballad appears modern, from a great many expressions, but yet I am certain that it is old: the present copy came from the housekeeper at Methven." Note by Sharpe, in Laing's ed. of the Ballad Book, 1880, p. 130, xvii. Motherwell, in his Minstrelsy, p. lxx, n. 24, says that he had seen a stall ballad as early as 1749, entitled 'The Western Tragedy,' which perfectly agreed with Sharpe's copy. But in his Note-Book, p. 5 (about 1826-7), Motherwell says, "The best copy of May Colean with which I have met occurs in a stall copy printed about thirty years ago [should we then read 1799 instead of 1749?], under the title of 'The Western Tragedy.' I have subsequently seen a posterior reprint of this stall copy under this title, 'The Historical Ballad of May Collean.' In Mr. Sharpe's Ballad Book, the same copy, wanting only one stanza, is given."
5. According to the variation given by Willems, and adopted by Hoffmann, Halewijn's son came to meet her, tied her horse to a tree, and bade her to sit down by him and loose her hair. For every hair she undid she dropped a tear. But it will presently be seen not only that the time has not come for them to sit down, but that Halewijn's bidding her undo her hair (to no purpose) is a perversion of her offering to "red" his, to get him into her power, an offer which she makes in the German and Scandinavian ballads, where also there is good reason for her tears, but none as yet here.
6. J. W. "Wolf, Deutsche Märchen u. Sagen, No 29, p. 143, gives the story according to B, apparently from a ballad like Snellaert's. So Luise v. Ploennies, Reiseerinnerungen aus Belgien, p. 38.
Halewyn makes his appearance again in the Flemish ballad, 'Halewyn en het kleyne Kind,' Coussemaker, No 46, p. 149; Poésies populaires de la France, vol. I. A boy of seven years has shot one of Halewyn's rabbits, and is for this condemned to be hanged on the highest tree in the park. The father makes great offers for his ransom, but in vain. On the first step of the ladder the child looks back for his mother, on the second for his father, on the third for his brother, on the fourth for his sister, each of whom successively arrives and is told that delay would have cost him his life. It will presently be seen that there is a resemblance here to German ballads (G-X, Z).
7. "La chanson de Halewyn, telle à peu près que la donnent Willems, Snellaert et de Coussemaker, se vend encore sur le marché de Bruges. Quoiqu'elle porte pour titre Halewyn, jamais notre pièce n'a été connue ici sous ce nom. Le nom de Halewijn, Alewijn ou Alwin ... est réservé au héros de la pièce suivante" [Mi Adel en Hir Alewijn]. Lootens et Feys, p. 66. "Il est à regretter que Willems et de Coussemaker n'aient pas jugé à propos de donner cette pièce telle que le peuple l'a conservée; on serait sans aucun doute en possession de variantes remarquables, et les lacunes qui existent dans notre version n'eussent pas manqué d'etre comblées. Il est bon d'insister sur la remarque faite à la suite de la chanson, qu'a Bruges et dans beaucoup de localités de la Flandre, elle n'est connue que sous le titre de Roland. Ajoutons que notre texte appartient au dernier siècle." L. et F., 295.
8. So in 'Liebe ohne Stand,' one of the mixed forms of the German ballad, Wunderhorn, Erk, I, 41, Crecelius, I, 36,
Und als es nun kam an den dritten Tag,
Da gingen die Pfeiffen und Trommeln an.
9. E.g., the wonderland in A 2-6, and the strict watch kept over the lady in 7-10 are repeated in 'Ribold og Guldborg,' Grundtvig, 82, B 2-7, 8-11, and in 'Den trofaste Jomfru,' ib. 249, A 3-6, 7-10. The watching in A, B, C and the proffered gifts of C, D, F are found in 'Nøkkens Svig,' Grundtvig, 39, A, B, 12-18. The disguise in A 11-14, the rest in the wood with the knight's head in the lady's lap, A 16, 27, B 11, 21, D 14, 24, E 11, 21, etc., recur in Ribold, B 12-14, L 9, 10, M 19, 20, N 11, 13, P 12, 13. These resemblances, naturally, are not limited to the Danish copies.
10. So the princess in Asbjörnsen og Moe, N. Folkeeventyr, p. 153. Cf. Campbell's Tales of the West Highlands, III, 209; IV, 282, 283.Lausen des Kopfes durch das Mädchen: notes by R. Köhler to L. Gonzenbach's Sicilianische Märchen, now published by J. Bolte, Zeitschrift des Vereins für Volkskunde, VI, 62. [Cf. Georgeakis et Pineau, Folk-lore de Lesbos, p. 257.]
11. The binding and waking, with these words, are found also in a made-up text of 'Frændehævn,' Grundtvig, No 4, C 51-53, but certainly borrowed from some copy of 'Kvindemorderen.'
12. All the German versions appear to have been originally in the two-line stanza.
13. The copies with this title in Simrock, No 6, p. 15, and in Scherer's Jungbrunnen, No 5 A, and his Deutsche V. L., 1851, p. 349, are compounded from various texts.
14. Both D and E have attached to them this final stanza:
'Odilia, why are thy shoes so red?'
'It is three doves that I shot dead.'
This is a well-known commonplace in tragic ballads; and Grundtvig suggests that this stanza was the occasion of the story taking the turn which we find in ballads of the third class.
15. One scarcely knows whether this bribe is an imperfect reminiscence of splendid promises which the knight makes, e.g., in the Danish ballads, or a shifting from the maid to the knight of the gold which the elsewhere opulent or well-to-do maid gets together while the knight is preparing to set forth; or simply one of those extravagances which so often make their appearance in later versions of ballads.
16. The number eleven is remarkably constant in the German ballads, being found in G, H, J-L, N-W; it is also the number in Swedish B. Eight is the favorite number in the North, and occurs in Danish A-D, H-L, Swedish A, C, Norwegian G, H; again in German I. German M, X, Danish F, have ten; German A, B, Danish E, Norwegian I, have nine; German C, D, seven; Danish G has nineteen. French A, B have fourteen, fifteen, Italian ballads still higher numbers: A, B, C, thirty-six, D, fifty-two, E, thirty-three, F, three hundred and three.
17. This stroke of realism fails only in M, N, R, of this second class.
18. Apparently to a Ribold ballad, of which no other trace has been found in German. See further on in this volume.
19.
13 'Ach du schöne junkfraw fein,
Du pfalzgravin, du kaiserin!
Der Adelger hat sich vor ailf getödt,
Du wirst die zwölft, das sei dir gsait.
15 'So bitt mich nit, du junkfraw fein,
So bitt mich nit, du herzigs ein!'
The liebkosung of this murder-reeking Adelger, o'ersized with coagulate gore, is admirably horrible.
20. Nimmersatt (All-begehrend) as interpreted by Meinert, not Adelger.
21. Verses which recur, nearly, not only in Y 17-19, W 27, 28, but elsewhere, as in a copy of 'Graf Friedrich,' Erk's Liederhort, p. 41, No 15, st. 19.
22. There is no sense in two doves. The single dove one may suppose to be the spirit of the last victim. We shall find the eleven appearing as doves in Q. There is no occasion to regard the dove here as a Waldminne (Vilmar, Handbüchlein für Freunde des deutschen Volkslieds, p. 57). Cf. the nightingale (and two nightingales) in the Danish 'Redselille og Medelvold:' see 'Leesome Brand,' further on in this volume.
23. This ballad has become, in Tübingen, a children's game, called 'Bertha im Wald.' The three cries are preserved in verse, and very nearly as in J, M. The game concludes by the robber smothering Bertha. Meier, Deutsche Kinder-Reime, No 439.
24. The last verses are these, and not very much worse than the rest:
Mein Bruder ist ein Jagersmann,
Der alle Thierlein schiessen kann;
Er hatt' ein zweischneidiges Schwerte,
Und stach es dem Falschen ins Herze.
My brother is a hunting man,
And all the small game shoot he can;
He had a sword with edges two,
And ran the heart of the false man through.
Ihr Mädchen alle insgemein,
Lasst euch doch diess zur Warnung sein,
Und geht doch mit keinem so falschen
In einen so finsteren Walde.
25. So in Rochholz, Schweizer Sagen, No 14, I, 23, a man who had killed eleven maids would, if he could have made up the number twelve, have been able to pass through walls and mouseholes. Again, a certain robber in Jutland, who had devoured eight children's hearts, would have acquired the power of flying could he but have secured one more. Grundtvig, D. g. F. IV, 16, note.
26. What will those who are so troubled about cork-heeled shoon in 'Sir Patrick Spens' say to the fire-arms in L, N, S?
27. A variety of W, cited in Schlesische Volkslieder, p. 26, has,
'Ach Ulbrich, Ulbrich, Halsemann, Halsemann,
Lass du mich nur drei Gale schrei'n!'
Grundtvig, assuming that the name is Ulbrich Halsemann, would account for the second and superfluous character here [found also in W] by a divarication of Ulrich Halsemann into Ulrich and Halsemann (Hanslein). Ansar, "bisher unverständlicher Vorname des Hitters Uleraich" in Y (Meinert), would equally well yield Hanslein. Might not Halsemann possibly be an equivalent of Halsherr?
28. And in 'Der Mutter Fluch,' Meinert, p. 246, a ballad with which Y agrees in the first two and last four stanzas.
29. There is a dove in Z, but Z, as has been said, presents traits of all three classes.
30. Lausen des Kopfes durch das Mädchen: notes by R. Köhler to L. Gonzenbach's Sicilianische Märchen, now published by J. Bolte, Zeitschrift des Vereins für Volkskunde, VI, 62. [Cf. Georgeakis et Pineau, Folk-lore de Lesbos, p. 257.]
31. 'Da lyge, feyns Lybchen, unndt fawle,
Meyn jungk Herze muss trawren.'
Nicolai, vv 35, 36,
'Da liege, du Häuptchen, und faule,
Kein Reuter wird dir nachtrauern.'
Simrock, vv 35, 36,
are evidently derived from the apostrophe to the murderer's head in I, W, Y.
Stolz Syburg is the hero of a very different ballad, from the Münster region, Reifferscheid, No 16, p. 32 (also No 17, and Simrock, No 9, p. 23, 'Stolz Heinrich'). And from this the name, in consequence of a remote resemblance in the story, may have been taken up by the Rhine ballad, though it has contributed nothing more. Margaret, a king's daughter, is wiled away by a splendid description of Stolz Syburg's opulence. When they have gone a long way, he tells her that he has nothing but a barren heath. She stabs herself at his feet.
32.'Wassermans Braut,' Meinert, p. 77; 'Die unglückliche Braut,' Hoffmann u. Richter, Schlesische V. L., p. 6, No. 2; 'Königs Töchterlein,' Erk u. Irmer, vi, 6, No 4; 'Der Wassermann,' Erk's Liederhort, p. 50, No 17. ('Die Nixenbraut,' "Norddeutschland," Zuccalmaglio, p. 192, No 92, seems to be Meinert's copy written over.)
33. The remarkable Norwegian ballad of the 'Wassermanns Braut' group, The Nix and Heiemo, Landstad, No 39, p. 350, has not been unaffected by the one we are now occupied with. There is even a verbal contact between stanza 19,
'Heiemo tenkte með sjave seg:
Tru mine smá knivar 'ki hjelper meg?'
and Norwegian F, stanza 9, cited by Grundtvig, IV, 4,
Lengji stó Gullbjör, hó tenkte mæ seg:
'Kann inkje mí' rúninne hjelpe meg?'
34. Kolberg's b, h, k, v, x, bb, cc, hh, kk, ll, nn, xx, yy, zz, consist of only one or two initial stanzas, containing no important variation. His aaa, a fragment of six stanzas, Pauli, p. 147, No 6, Wojcicki, II, 169, though it begins like the rest, sounds like a different ballad.
The ballad in Wojcicki, I, 38, is allied with the one we are engaged with, and the two fragments on p. 36, p. 37 with both this and that.
35. Anne in R, LL, and Kolberg's h: Mary in I, U, II: Ursula, N: both Catherine and Alice, AA. John is found in all but N, where there is a nameless seigneur.
36. They are expressly said to go off in a carriage in I, O, Q, T, BB, DD, FF. Still, in I, John says, "Let the black horse have something to carry under us." In O, T, FF, the horses have a presentiment of evil to their mistress, and refuse to stir.
37. One version of 'The Two Sisters,' Q, has the same answer:
'I did not put you in with the design
Just for to pull you out again.'
st. 9.
This might be called a formula in Polish ballads: something of the kind occurs three times in X, four times in B, five times in F; in other ballads also. In Q 25, Catherine clutches the river bank, and John pushes away her hands. Compare 'The Two Sisters,' F 9, further on in this volume.
38. L, L*, M, N, as already said, confuse the two catastrophes. John says, in N, "Do you see that broad river? I will measure its depth by throwing you in." We may assume that he was as good as his word. But Ursula made her way home through woods and forests, weeping her eyes out on the way. Kind souls dug a grave for her. The conclusion of M is absurd, but need not be particularized. G has a passage of the sternest theology. While Catherine is struggling in the water, her father comes by. She cries to him to save her. He says, "My dear Catherine, you have loved pleasure too much. Lord Jesus grant you drown!" Her mother appears, and makes the same reply to her daughter's appeal. There are stall-copy terminal morals to many of the ballads.
39. N 1, "A lord came riding from his estate to a neighbor."
40. The place is high above the water in R 10, 11, as in English D 9, 29, C 4.
41. BB 6, "My mother said that I had seen you; she will watch me closely," may be an accidental coincidence with Danish A 7-9, B 6-8, etc.
42. The second, and more valuable, volume of Waldau's B. G. I have found it impossible to obtain. Reifferscheid cites the ballad at p. 166.
43. A few silly verses follow in the original, in which Thomas treats what he had said as a jest. These are properly rejected by Talvj as a spurious appendage,
44. 'De achte de soll Helena sin,
De achte de most he sölwer sin.'
German A b 13.
45. Another version of this double ballad, but much corrupted in the second part, was known to Gérard de Nerval. See Les Filles du Feu, Œuvres completes, v, 132.
46. So far there is agreement in 'La Fille du Prince,' 1Paymaigre, No 32, p. 106; Poésies pop. de la France, manuscript, III, fol. 133.
47. The Asturian romance communicated in two copies by Amador de los Rios to Jahrbuch für rom. u. eng. Literatur, III, 285, No 2, and the Portuguese 'Romance de Romeirinha,' Braga, Romanceiro, No 9, p. 24, 'A Romeira,' Almeida-Garrett, III, 11, are not parallels, though they have been cited as such.
48. Magyar Népköltési Gyüjtemény. Uj Folyam, szerkesztik és kiadják Arany László és Gyulai Pál. Collection of Magyar Popular Poetry, New Series, Pest, 1872, 2 vols. Aigner, has blended Nos 4 and 3 (C, A) in 'Martin und Aennchen,' Ungarische Volksdichtungen, p. 170, and has translated No 1 (E), at p. 120, 'Molnár Anna,' in each case obscuring or omitting one or two traits which are important for a comparative view.
49. Very little remains of the artifice in Polish A. The idea seems to be that the girl pretends to be curious about the sword in order to get it into her hands. But the whole story is told in ten stanzas.
50. I accept and repeat Grundtvig's views as to the relation of the three forms of the story. And with regard to the history of the ballad generally, this is but one of many cases in which much or most of the work had been done to my hand in Danmarks gamle Folkeviser.
51. Memering was required by his adversary to swear that he knew not of the sword Adelring, and took his oath that he knew of nothing but the hilt being above ground, which was accepted as satisfactory. Presently he pulls Adelring out of the ground, into which he had thrust the blade, and, being accused of perjury, triumphantly rejoins that he had sworn that he knew of nothing but the hilt being above ground. Dietrich does the same in his duel with Sigurd Swain.
52. Magyar A is entirely peculiar. Apparently the man lays his head in the woman's lap that he may know, by the falling of her tears, when she has disobeyed his command not to look into the tree. This is like 'Bluebeard' and rather subtle for a ballad.
53. 'Child Waters,' 'The Fair Flower of Northumberland.'
54. The murderer has a horn in Swedish C, D, as also in the Dutch Halewyn and the German A, B, C, E, and the horn may be of magical power, but it is not distinctly described as such.
55. The scenery of the halting-place in the wood — the bloody streams in Danish A, B, D, H, L, K, the blood-girt spring in German H, J, K, L, O, P, Q — is also, to say the least, suggestive of something horribly uncanny. These are undoubtedly ancient features, though the spring, as the Danish editor observes, has no longer any significancy in the German ballads, because in all of them the previous victims are said to have been hanged.
56. The saga in Björner's Nordiska Kämpadater, c. 5-7.
57. The saga in Björner's Nordiska Kämpadater, c. 5-7.
58. So perhaps a Polish ballad in Wojcicki, I, 38, akin to the other John and Katie ballads.
59. It is well known that in the Middle Ages the blood of children or of virgins was reputed a specific for leprosy (see, e.g., Cassel in the Weimar Jahrbücher, I, 408.) Some have thought to find in this fact an explanation of the murders in these ballads and in the Bluebeard stories, and, according to Rochholz, this theory has been adopted into popular tradition in the Aargau. So far as this cycle of ballads is concerned, there is as much ground for holding that the blood was wanted to cure leprosy as for believing that the gold was wanted for aurum potabile.
60. Det philologisk-historiske Samfunds Mindeskrift i Anledning af dets femogtyveaarige Virksomhed, 1854-79, Bidrag til den nordiske Balladedigtnings Historie, p. 75 ff.
61. Bugge cites the Old German Judith, Müllenhoff u. Scherer, Denkmäler, 2d ed., No 37, p. 105, to show how the Bible story became modified under a popular treatment.
62. Holefern might doubtless pass into Halewyn, but there is not the slightest need of Holefern to account for Halewyn. Halewyn, besides being a well-known local and family appellation, is found in two other Dutch ballads, one of which (Lootens and Feys, p. 66, No 38; Hoffmann, p. 46, No 11) has no kind of connection with the present, and is no more likely to have derived the name from this than this from that. It shall not be denied that Adelger, Hilsinger, Rullemann, Reimvord might have sprung from or have been suggested by Holofern, under the influence of familiar terminations, but it may be remarked that Hildebrand, Ravengaard, Valdemar, Rosmer, if they had occurred in any version, would have occasioned no greater difficulty.
63. The Old German poem makes Holofernes kindle with desire for Judith the moment he sees her, and he bids his men bring her to his tent. They lift her up and bring her in.
64.The Old German poem makes Holofernes kindle with desire for Judith the moment he sees her, and he bids his men bring her to his tent. They lift her up and bring her in.
65. Simply because he had no other apartment at his disposition. Shall we add, the Polish mother putting her daughter into the "new room," in which she kept her valuables'!
66. Bugge holds that the ballad was derived by the Scandinavians from the Germans, more precisely by the Danes from a Low German form. This, he says, would follow from what he has maintained above, and he finds support for his view in many particular traits of Norse copies. Thus, one of the Norwegian names for the murderer is Alemarken. The first three syllables are very near to the Danish Oldemor; but -ken seems to be the German diminutive suffix, and can only be explained by the ballad having come from Germany.
67. This toilet derives importance solely from the agreement with Judith x, 3: for the rest it is entirely in the ballad style. Compare the toilets in 'Hafsfrun,' Afzelius, No 92, in, 148, Arwidsson, No 150, II, 320, Wigström, Folkdiktning, No 2, p. 11, Landstad, No 55, p. 494: 'Guldsmedens Datter,' Grundtvig, No. 245, IV, 481 ff, Wigström, ib., No 18, p. 37, Landstad, No 43, p. 437: Torkilds Riim, Lyngbye, Faerøiske Qvæder, 534, 535, Afzelius, III, 202: 'Stolts Karin,' Arwidsson, No 63, I, 388: 'Liti Kerstis hevn,' Landstad, No 67, p. 559 = 'Lord Thomas and Fair Annet': in many of which there is a gold crown. There is a man's toilet in Grundtvig, No 207, IV, 201.
68. Bugge would naturally have seen the Assyrian scouts that Judith falls in with (x, 11) in Roland's father, mother, and brother, all of whom hail the maid as she is making for Roland's quarters (C 30-38); still more "Holofernes jacebat in lecto" (xiii, 4), in "Roland die op zijn bedde lag," C 39.
69. Judith xiv, 1: "Suspendite caput hoc super muros nostros." The cutting off and bringing home of the head, as need hardly be said, is not of itself remarkable, being found everywhere from David to Beówulf, and from Beówulf to 'Sir Andrew Barton.'
70. Dutch B, which, as before said, has been completely rewritten, makes the comparison with Holofernes:
34 'Ik heb van't leven hem beroofd,
in mynen schoot heb ik zyn hoofd,
hy is als Holofernes gelooft.'
37 Zy reed dan voort als Judith wys,
zoo regt nae haer vaders paleis,
daer zy wierd ingehaeld met eer en prys.
Ye maidens now in general,
Let this be warning to you all;
With man so false you never should
Go to so very dark a wood.
Brief by Kittredge:
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 English forms are not without ancient and distinctive marks, most of these have been eliminated, and the better ballads are very brief. In A and B the supernatural character of the Elf-Knight is retained (less clearly in B); in others it is lost completely, and he has become merely "false Sir John" or the like.
The Dutch hallad, 'Halewijn,' is far better preserved than the English. Heer Halewijn 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." 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. They then rode on further, till they came to a gallows, on which many women were hanging.
Halewijn offers her the choice between hanging and the sword. She 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.
Child's Ballad Texts A-F; with G-H in Additions/Corrections
'The Gowans sae gay'- Version A a; Child 4, Lady Isabel and the Elf Knight
a. Buchan's Ballads of the North of Scotland, I, 22.
b. Motherwell's Manuscript, p. 563.
1 Fair lady Isabel sits in her bower sewing,
Aye as the gowans grow gay
There she heard an elf-knight blawing his horn.
The first morning in May
2 'If I had yon horn that I hear blawing,
Aye as the gowans grow gay
And yon elf-knight to sleep in my bosom.'
The first morning in May
3 This maiden had scarcely these words spoken,
Aye as the gowans grow gay
Till in at her window the elf-knight has luppen.
The first morning in May
4 'It's a very strange matter, fair maiden,' said he,
Aye as the gowans grow gay
'I canna blaw my horn but ye call on me.
The first morning in May
5 'But will ye go to yon greenwood side?
Aye as the gowans grow gay
If ye canna gang, I will cause you to ride.'
The first morning in May
6 He leapt on a horse, and she on another,
Aye as the gowans grow gay
And they rode on to the greenwood together.
The first morning in May
7 'Light down, light down, lady Isabel,' said he,
Aye as the gowans grow gay
We are come to the place where ye are to die.
The first morning in May
8 'Hae mercy, hae mercy, kind sir, on me,
Aye as the gowans grow gay
Till ance my dear father and mother I see.'
The first morning in May
9 'Seven king's-daughters here hae I slain,
Aye as the gowans grow gay
And ye shall be the eight o them.'
The first morning in May
10 'O sit down a while, lay your head on my knee,
Aye as the gowans grow gay
That we may hae some rest before that I die.'
The first morning in May
11 She stroakd him sae fast, the nearer he did creep,
Aye as the gowans grow gay
Wi a sma charm she lulld him fast asleep.
The first morning in May
12 Wi his ain sword-belt sae fast as she ban him,
Aye as the gowans grow gay
Wi his ain dag-durk sae sair as she dang him.
The first morning in May
13 'If seven king's-daughters here ye hae slain,
Aye as the gowans grow gay
Lye ye here, a husband to them a'.'
The first morning in May
------------------
'The Water o Wearie's Well'- Version B a; Child 4, Lady Isabel and the Elf Knight
a. Buchan's Manuscripts, II, fol. 80.
b. Buchan's Ballads of the North of Scotland, II, 201.
c. Motherwell's Manuscript, p. 561.
d. Harris Manuscript, No 19.
1 There came a bird out o a bush,
On water for to dine,
An sighing sair, says the king's daughter,
'O wae's this heart o mine!'
2 He's taen a harp into his hand,
He's harped them all asleep,
Except it was the king's daughter,
Who one wink couldna get.
3 He's luppen on his berry-brown steed,
Taen 'er on behind himsell,
Then baith rede down to that water
That they ca Wearie's Well.
4 'Wide in, wide in, my lady fair,
No harm shall thee befall;
Oft times I've watered my steed
Wi the waters o Wearie's Well.'
5 The first step that she stepped in,
She stepped to the knee;
And sighend says this lady fair,
'This water's nae for me.'
6 'Wide in, wide in, my lady fair,
No harm shall thee befall;
Oft times I've watered my steed
Wi the water o Wearie's Well.'
7 The next step that she stepped in,
She stepped to the middle;
'O,' sighend says this lady fair,
I've wat my gowden girdle.'
8 'Wide in, wide in, my lady fair,
No harm shall thee befall;
Oft times have I watered my steed
Wi the water o Wearie's Well.'
9 The next step that she stepped in,
She stepped to the chin;
'O,' sighend says this lady fair,
'They sud gar twa loves twin.'
10 'Seven king's-daughters I've drownd there,
In the water o Wearie's Well,
And I'll make you the eight o them,
And ring the common bell.'
11 'Since I am standing here,' she says,
'This dowie death to die,
One kiss o your comely mouth
I'm sure wad comfort me.'
12 He louted him oer his saddle bow,
To kiss her cheek and chin;
She's taen him in her arms twa,
An thrown him headlong in.
13 'Since seven king's daughters ye've drowned there,
In the water o Wearie's Well,
I'll make you bridegroom to them a',
An ring the bell mysell.'
14 And aye she warsled, and aye she swam,
And she swam to dry lan;
She thanked God most cheerfully
The dangers she oercame.
-------------------
'May Colven'- Version C a; Child 4, Lady Isabel and the Elf Knight
a. Herd's Manuscripts, I, 166.
b. Herd's Ancient and Modern Scottish Songs, 1776, I, 93.
c. Motherwell's Minstrelsy, p. 67, = b "collated with a copy obtained from recitation."
1 False Sir John a wooing came
To a maid of beauty fair;
May Colven was this lady's name,
Her father's only heir.
2 He wood her butt, he wood her ben,
He wood her in the ha,
Until he got this lady's consent
To mount and ride awa.
3 He went down to her father's bower,
Where all the steeds did stand,
And he's taken one of the best steeds
That was in her father's land.
4 He's got on and she's got on,
And fast as they could flee,
Until they came to a lonesome part,
A rock by the side of the sea.
5 'Loup off the steed,' says false Sir John,
'Your bridal bed you see;
For I have drowned seven young ladies,
The eight one you shall be.
6 'Cast off, cast off, my May Colven,
All and your silken gown,
For it's oer good and oer costly
To rot in the salt sea foam.
7 'Cast off, cast off, my May Colven,
All and your embroiderd shoen,
For they're oer good and oer costly
To rot in the salt sea foam.'
8 'O turn you about, O false Sir John,
And look to the leaf of the tree,
For it never became a gentleman
A naked woman to see.'
9 He turnd himself straight round about,
To look to the leaf of the tree;
So swift as May Colven was
To throw him in the sea.
10 'O help, O help, my May Colven,
O help, or else I'll drown;
I'll take you home to your father's bower,
And set you down safe and sound.'
11 'No help, no help, O false Sir John,
No help, nor pity thee;
Tho seven king's-daughters you have drownd,
But the eight shall not be me.'
12 So she went on her father's steed,
As swift as she could flee,
And she came home to her father's bower
Before it was break of day.
13 Up then and spoke the pretty parrot:
'May Colven, where have you been?
What has become of false Sir John,
That woo'd you so late the streen?
14 'He woo'd you butt, he woo'd you ben,
He woo'd you in the ha,
Until he got your own consent
For to mount and gang awa.'
15 'O hold your tongue, my pretty parrot,
Lay not the blame upon me;
Your cup shall be of the flowered gold,
Your cage of the root of the tree.'
16 Up then spake the king himself,
In the bed-chamber where he lay:
'What ails the pretty parrot,
That prattles so long or day?'
17 'There came a cat to my cage door,
It almost a worried me,
And I was calling on May Colven
To take the cat from me.'
--------------------
'May Collin'- Version D a; Child 4, Lady Isabel and the Elf Knight
a. Sharpe's Ballad Book (1823), No 17, p. 45.
b. Buchan's Ballads of the North of Scotland, II, 45.
c. Motherwell's Minstrelsy, Appendix, p. 21, No. XXIV, one stanza.
d. 'The historical ballad of May Culzean,' an undated stall-copy.
1 O heard ye of a bloody knight,
Lived in the south country?
For he has betrayed eight ladies fair
And drowned them in the sea.
2 Then next he went to May Collin,
She was her father's heir,
The greatest beauty in the land,
I solemnly declare.
3 'I am a knight of wealth and might,
Of townlands twenty-three;
And you'll be lady of them all,
If you will go with me.'
4 'Excuse me, then, Sir John,' she says;
'To wed I am too young;
Without I have my parents' leave,
With you I darena gang.'
5 'Your parents' leave you soon shall have,
In that they will agree;
For I have made a solemn vow
This night you'll go with me.'
6 From below his arm he pulled a charm,
And stuck it in her sleeve,
And he has made her go with him,
Without her parents' leave.
7 Of gold and silver she has got
With her twelve hundred pound,
And the swiftest steed her father had
She has taen to ride upon.
8 So privily they went along,
They made no stop or stay,
Till they came to the fatal place
That they call Bunion Bay.
9 It being in a lonely place,
And no house there was nigh,
The fatal rocks were long and steep,
And none could hear her cry.
10 'Light down,' he said, 'Fair May Collin,
Light down and speak with me,
For here I've drowned eight ladies fair,
And the ninth one you shall be.'
11 'Is this your bowers and lofty towers,
So beautiful and gay?
Or is it for my gold,' she said,
'You take my life away?'
12 'Strip off,' he says, 'Thy jewels fine,
So costly and so brave,
For they are too costly and too fine
To throw in the sea wave.'
13 'Take all I have my life to save,
O good Sir John, I pray;
Let it neer be said you killed a maid
Upon her wedding day.'
14 'Strip off,' he says, 'Thy Holland smock,
That's bordered with the lawn,
For it's too costly and too fine
To rot in the sea sand.'
15 'O turn about, Sir John,' she said,
'Your back about to me,
For it never was comely for a man
A naked woman to see.'
16 But as he turned him round about,
She threw him in the sea,
Saying, 'Lie you there, you false Sir John,
Where you thought to lay me.
17 'O lie you there, you traitor false,
Where you thought to lay me,
For though you stripped me to the skin,
Your clothes you've got with thee.'
18 Her jewels fine she did put on,
So costly, rich and brave,
And then with speed she mounts his steed,
So well she did behave.
19 That lady fair being void of fear,
Her steed being swift and free,
And she has reached her father's gate
Before the clock struck three.
20 Then first she called the stable groom,
He was her waiting man;
Soon as he heard his lady's voice
He stood with cap in hand.
21 'Where have you been, fair May Collin?
Who owns this dapple grey?'
'It is a found one,' she replied,
'That I got on the way.'
22 Then out bespoke the wily parrot
Unto fair May Collin:
'What have you done with false Sir John,
That went with you yestreen?'
23 'O hold your tongue, my pretty parrot,
And talk no more to me,
And where you had a meal a day
O now you shall have three.'
24 Then up bespoke her father dear,
From his chamber where he lay:
'What aileth thee, my pretty Poll,
That you chat so long or day?'
25 The cat she came to my cage-door,
The thief I could not see,
And I called to fair May Collin,
To take the cat from me.'
26 Then first she told her father dear
The deed that she had done,
And next she told her mother dear
Concerning false Sir John.
27 'If this be true, fair May Collin,
That you have told to me,
Before I either eat or drink
This false Sir John I'll see.'
28 Away they went with one consent,
At dawning of the day,
Until they came to Carline Sands,
And there his body lay.
29 His body tall, by that great fall,
By the waves tossed to and fro,
The diamond ring that he had on
Was broke in pieces two.
30 And they have taken up his corpse
To yonder pleasant green,
And there they have buried false Sir John,
For fear he should be seen.
--------------------
'The Outlandish Knight'- Version E; Child 4, Lady Isabel and the Elf Knight
J.H. Dixon, Ancient Poems, Ballads, and Songs of the Peasantry of England, p. 74.
1 An outlandish knight came from the north lands,
And he came a-wooing to me;
He told me he'd take me unto the north lands,
And there he would marry me.
2 'Come, fetch me some of your father's gold,
And some of your mother's fee,
And two of the best nags out of the stable,
Where they stand thirty and three.'
3 She fetched him some of her father's gold,
And some of her mother's fee,
And two of the best nags out of the stable,
Where they stood thirty and three.
4 She mounted her on her milk-white steed,
He on the dapple grey;
They rode till they came unto the sea-side,
Three hours before it was day.
5 'Light off, light off thy milk-white steed,
And deliver it unto me;
Six pretty maids have I drowned here,
And thou the seventh shalt be.
6 'Pull off, pull off thy silken gown,
And deliver it unto me;
Methinks it looks too rich and too gay
To rot in the salt sea.
7 'Pull off, pull off thy silken stays,
And deliver them unto me;
Methinks they are too fine and gay
To rot in the salt sea.
8 'Pull off, pull off thy Holland smock,
And deliver it unto me;
Methinks it looks too rich and gay
To rot in the salt sea.'
9 'If I must pull off my Holland smock,
Pray turn thy back unto me;
For it is not fitting that such a ruffian
A naked woman should see.'
10 He turned his back towards her
And viewed the leaves so green;
She catched him round the middle so small,
And tumbled him into the stream.
11 He dropped high and he dropped low,
Until he came to the side;
'Catch hold of my hand, my pretty maiden,
And I will make you my bride.'
12 'Lie there, lie there, you false-hearted man,
Lie there instead of me;
Six pretty maids have you drowned here,
And the seventh has drowned thee.'
13 She mounted on her milk-white steed,
And led the dapple grey;
She rode till she came to her own father's hall,
Three hours before it was day.
14 The parrot being in the window so high,
Hearing the lady, did say,
'I'm afraid that some ruffian has led you astray,
That you have tarried so long away.'
15 'Don't prittle nor prattle, my pretty parrot,
Nor tell no tales of me;
Thy cage shall be made of the glittering gold,
Although it is made of a tree.'
16 The king being in the chamber so high,
And hearing the parrot, did say,
'What ails you, what ails you, my pretty parrot,
That you prattle so long before day?'
17 'It's no laughing matter,' the parrot did say,
'That so loudly I call unto thee,
For the cats have got into the window so high,
And I'm afraid they will have me.'
18 'Well turned, well turned, my pretty parrot,
Well turned, well turned for me;
Thy cage shall be made of the glittering gold,
And the door of the best ivory.'
'The False Knight Outwitted'- Version F; Child 4, Lady Isabel and the Elf Knight
Roxburghe Ballads, III, 449.
In the catalogue of the British Museum, "London? 1710?"
1 'Go fetch me some of your father's gold,
And some of your mother's fee,
And I'll carry you into the north land,
And there I'll marry thee.'
2 She fetchd him some of her father's gold,
And some of her mother's fee;
She carried him into the stable,
Where horses stood thirty and three.
3 She leapd on a milk-white steed,
And he on a dapple-grey;
They rode til they came to a fair river's side,
Three hours before it was day.
4 'O light, O light, you lady gay,
O light with speed, I say,
For six knight's daughters have I drowned here,
And you the seventh must be.'
5 'Go fetch the sickle, to crop the nettle
That grows so near the brim,
For fear it should tangle my golden locks,
Or freckle my milk-white skin.'
6 He fetchd the sickle, to crop the nettle
That grows so near the brim,
And with all the strength that pretty Polly had
She pushd the false knight in.
7 'Swim on, swim on, thou false knight,
And there bewail thy doom,
For I don't think thy cloathing too good
To lie in a watry tomb.'
8 She leaped on her milk-white steed,
She led the dapple grey;
She rid till she came to her father's house,
Three hours before it was day.
9 'Who knocked so loudly at the ring?'
The parrot he did say;
'O where have you been, my pretty Polly,
All this long summer's day?'
10 'O hold your tongue, parrot,
Tell you no tales of me;
Your cage shall be made of beaten gold,
Which is now made of a tree.'
11 O then bespoke her father dear,
As he on his bed did lay:
'O what is the matter, my parrot,
That you speak before it is day?'
12 'The cat's at my cage, master,
And sorely frighted me,
And I calld down my Polly
To take the cat away.'
----------------------
'The Knight and the Chief's Daughter'- Version G; Child 4, Lady Isabel and the Elf Knight
British Museum, Manuscript Addit. 20094. 'The Knight and the Chief's Daughter,' communicated to Mr. T. Crofton Croker in 1829, as remembered by Mr. W. Pigott Rogers, and believed by Mr. Rogers to have been learned by him from an Irish nursery-maid.
1 'Now steal me some of your father's gold,
And some of your mother's fee,
And steal the best steed in your father's stable,
Where there lie thirty three.'
2 She stole him some of her father's gold,
And some of her mother's fee,
And she stole the best steed from her father's stable,
Where there lay thirty three.
3 And she rode on the milk-white steed,
And he on the barb so grey,
Until they came to the green, green wood,
Three hours before it was day.
4 'Alight, alight, my pretty colleen,
Alight immediately,
For six knight's daughters I drowned here,
And thou the seventh shall be.'
5 'Oh hold your tongue, you false knight villain,
Oh hold your tongue,' said she;
''Twas you that promised to marry me,
For some of my father's fee.'
6 'Strip off, strip off your jewels so rare,
And give them all to me;
I think them too rich and too costly by far
To rot in the sand with thee.'
7 'Oh turn away, thou false knight villain,
Oh turn away from me;
Oh turn away, with your back to the cliff,
And your face to the willow-tree.'
8 He turned about, with his back to the cliff,
And his face to the willow-tree;
So sudden she took him up in her arms,
And threw him into the sea.
9 'Lie there, lie there, thou false knight villain,
Lie there instead of me;
'T was you that promised to marry me,
For some of my father's fee.'
10 'Oh take me by the arm, my dear,
And hold me by the hand,
And you shall be my gay lady,
And the queen of all Scotland.'
11 'I'll not take you by the arm, my dear,
Nor hold you by the hand;
And I won't be your gay lady,
And the queen of all Scotland.'
12 And she rode on the milk-white steed,
And led the barb so grey,
Until she came back to her father's castle,
One hour before it was day.
13 And out then spoke her parrot so green,
From the cage wherein she lay:
Where have you now been, my pretty colleen,
This long, long summer's day?
14 'Oh hold your tongue, my favourite bird,
And tell no tales on me;
Your cage I will make of the beaten gold,
And hang in the willow-tree.'
15 Out then spoke her father dear,
From the chamber where he lay:
Oh what hath befallen my favourite bird,
That she calls so loud for day?
16 ''Tis nothing at all, good lord,' she said,
''Tis nothing at all indeed;
It was only the cat came to my cage-door,
And I called my pretty colleen.'
------------------------------------------------
[H.] 'May Collin,' MS. at Abbotsford. Scotch Ballads, Materials for Border Minstrelsy, No. 146.
1 May Collin . . .
. . was her father’s heir,
And she fell in love with a falsh priest,
And she rued it ever mair.
2 He followd her butt, he followd her benn,
He followd her through the hall,
Till she had neither tongue nor teeth
Nor lips to say him naw.
3 ‘We’ll take the steed out where he is,
The gold where eer it be,
And we’ll away to some unco land,
And married we shall be.’
4 They had not riden a mile, a mile,
A mile but barely three,
Till they came to a rank river,
Was raging like the sea.
5 ‘Light off, light off now, May Collin,
It’s here that you must die;
Here I have drownd seven king’s daughters,
The eight now you must be.
6 ‘Cast off, cast off now, May Collin,
Your gown that’s of the green;
For it’s oer good and oer costly
To rot in the sea-stream.
7 ‘Cast off, cast off now, May Collin,
Your coat that’s of the black;
For it’s oer good and oer costly
To rot in the sea-wreck.
8 ‘Cast off, cast off now, May Collin,
Your stays that are well laced;
For thei’r oer good and costly
In the sea’s ground to waste.
9 ‘Cast [off, cast off now, May Collin,]
Your sark that’s of the holland;
For [it’s oer good and oer costly]
To rot in the sea-bottom.’
10 ‘Turn you about now, falsh Mess John,
To the green leaf of the tree;
It does not fit a mansworn man
A naked woman to see.’
11 He turnd him quickly round about,
To the green leaf of the tree;
She took him hastly in her arms
And flung him in the sea.
12 ‘Now lye you there, you falsh Mess John,
My mallasin go with thee!
You thought to drown me naked and bare,
But take your cloaths with thee,
And if there be seven king’s daughters there
Bear you them company.’
13 She lap on her milk steed
And fast she bent the way,
And she was at her father’s yate
Three long hours or day.
14 Up and speaks the wylie parrot,
So wylily and slee:
‘Where is the man now, May Collin,
That gaed away wie thee?’
15 ‘Hold your tongue, my wylie parrot,
And tell no tales of me,
And where I gave a pickle befor
It’s now I’ll give you three.’
End-Notes
A. Burden. Song xix of Forbes's 'Cantus,' Aberdeen, 1682, 3d ed., has, as pointed out by Motherwell, Minstrelsy, p. lx, nearly the same burden: The gowans are gay, The first morning of May. And again, a song in the Tea Table Miscellany, as remarked by Buchan, There gowans are gay, The first morning of May: p. 404 of the 12th ed., London, 1763.
Burden. The song in the Tea-Table Miscellany and the music are found in John Squair's Manuscript, fol. 22, Laing collection, library of the University of Edinburgh, handwriting about 1700. (W. Macmath.)
b. No doubt furnished to Motherwell by Buchan, as a considerable number of ballads in this part of his manuscript. seem to have been.
32. Then in.
81. kind sir, said she.
102. That we may some rest before I die.
111. the near.
132. to them ilk ane.
1 is given by Motherwell, Minstrelsy, p. lx, but apparently to improve metre and secure rhyme, thus:
Lady Isabel sits in her bouir sewing,
She heard an elf-knight his horn blowing.
B. b. Buchan's printed copy differs from the manuscript very slightly, except in spelling.
43, 63. Aft times hae I.
53. And sighing sair says.
73, 93. And sighing says.
142. Till she swam.
143. Then thanked.
144. she'd.
c. Like A b, derived by Motherwell from Buchan.
41, 61, 81. wade in, wade in.
143. And thanked.
Dixon, Scottish Traditional Versions of Ancient Ballads, p. 63, printing B from the manuscript, makes one or two trivial changes.
d. is only this fragment.
43 Mony a time I rade wi my brown foal
The water o Wearie's Wells,
'Leave aff, leave aff your gey mantle,
It 's a' gowd but the hem;
Leave aff, leave [aff], it's far owre gude
To weet i the saut see faem.'
5 She wade in, an he rade in,
Till it took her to the knee;
Wi sighin said that lady gay
'Sic wadin's no for me.'
* * *
9 He rade in, and she wade in,
Till it took her to the chin;
Wi sighin said that ladie gay
'I'll wade nae farer in.'
103 'Sax king's dochters I hae drowned,
An the seventh you sail be.'
* * *
13 'Lie you there, you fause young man,
Where you thought to lay me.'
C. b. The printed copy follows the manuscript with only very trifling variations:
Colvin for Colven;
131, up then spak;
164, ere day;
172, almost worried.
c. 21,2. he 's courted.
23. Till once he got.
Between 2 and 3 is inserted:
She 's gane to her father's coffers,
Where all his money lay,
And she 's taken the red, and she 's left the white,
And so lightly as she tripped away.
31 She 's gane down to her father's stable,
32 And she 's taken the best, and she 's left the warst.
4 He rode on, and she rode on,
They rode a long summer's day,
Until they came to a broad river,
An arm of a lonesome sea.
53,4 'For it's seven king's daughters I have drowned here,
And the eighth I'll out make with thee.'
61,2 'Cast off, cast off your silks so fine,
And lay them on a stone.'
71,2,3 'Cast off, cast off your holland smock,
And lay it on this stone,
For it 's too fine.' ...
93,4 She 's twined her arms about his waist,
And thrown him into
101-2 'O hold a grip of me. May Colvin, For fear that I should'
3 father's gates 4 and safely I 'll set you down.
11 'O lie you there, thou false Sir John,
O lie you there,' said she,
'For you lie not in a caulder bed
Than the ane you intended for me.'
123,4 father's gates.
At the breaking of the day.
134 yestreen.
Between 13 and 14 is inserted:
Up then spake the pretty parrot,
In the bonnie cage where it lay:
'O what hae ye done with the false Sir John,
That he behind you does stay?'
153,4 'Your cage will be made of the beaten gold,
And the spakes of ivorie.'
171,2 'It was a cat cam . . .
I thought 't would have ' . . .
D. a. 21. Colin.
b. Buchan's copy makes many slight changes which are not noticed here.
12 , west countrie.
After 1 is inserted:
All ladies of a gude account
As ever yet were known;
This traitor was a baron knight,
They calld him fause Sir John.
After 2:
'Thou art the darling of my heart,
I say, fair May Colvin,
So far excells thy beauties great
That ever I hae seen.'
32. Hae towers, towns twenty three.
72. five hunder.
73. The best an steed.
83. fatal end.
84. Binyan's Bay.
122. rich and rare. 124. sea ware.
After 12:
Then aff she's taen her jewels fine,
And thus she made her moan:
'Hae mercy on a virgin young,
I pray you, gude Sir John.'
'Cast aff, cast aff, fair May Colvin,
Your gown and petticoat,
For they 're too costly and too fine
To rot by the sea rock.'
134. Before her.
144. to toss.
183. her steed.
233. What hast thou made o fause.
283. Charlestown sands. Sharpe thinks Carline Sands means Carlinseugh Sands on the coast of Forfarshire.
After 30:
Ye ladies a', wherever you be,
That read this mournful song,
I pray you mind on May Colvin,
And think on fause Sir John.
Aff they've taen his jewels fine,
To keep in memory;
And sae I end my mournful sang
And fatal tragedy.
c. Motherwell's one stanza is:
O heard ye eer o a bloody knight
That livd in the west countrie?
For he has stown seven ladies fair,
And drownd them a' in the sea.
Additions and Corrections
P. 22 b. D. Add: d. 'The historical ballad of May Culzean,' an undated stall-copy.
26 b. Another Dutch version (Frisian), spirited, but with gaps, is given by Dykstra and van der Meulen, In Doaze fol aide Snypsnaren, Frjentsjer, 1882, p. 118, 'Jan Alberts,' 66 vv. (Kohler.)
D. Jan Alberts sings a song, and those that hear it know it not. It is heard by a king's daughter, who asks her mother's leave to go out for a walk, and is told that it is all one where she goes or stays, if she keeps her honor. Her father says the same, when she applies for his leave. She goes to her bedroom and dresses herself finely, dons a gold crown, puts her head out of the window, and cries, Now am I Jan Alberts' bride. Jan Alberts takes her on his horse; they ride fast and long, with nothing to eat or drink for three days. She then asks Jan why he gives her nothing, and he answers that he shall ride to the high true where hang fourteen fair maids. Arrived there, he gives her the choice of tree, sword, or water. She chooses the sword, bids him spare his coat, for a pure maid's blood goes far, and before his coat is half off his head lies behind him. The head cries, Behind the bush is a pot of grease; smear my neck with it. She will not smear from a murderer's pot, nor blow in a murderer's horn. She mounts his horse, and rides far and long. Jan Alberts' mother comes to meet her, and asks after him. She says he is not far off, and is sporting with fourteen maids. Had you told me this before, I would have laid you in the water, says the mother. The maid rides on till she comes to her father's gate. Then she cries to her father to open, for his youngest daughter is without. The father not bestirring himself, she swims the moat, and, the door not being open, goes through the glass. The next day she dries her clothes.
30 a, 37 a. There is a Low German version of the first class, A-F, in Spee, Volksthiimliches vom Niederrhein, Kbln, 1875, Zweites Heft, p. 3, ' Schbndili,' 50 vv. (Kohler.)
AA. Schbndili's parents died when she was a child. Schbn-Albert, knowing this, rides to her. She attires herself in silk, with a gold crown on her hair, and he swings her on to his horse. They ride three days and nights, with nothing to eat or drink. She asks whether it is not meal-time; he replies that they are coming to a linden, where they will eat and drink. Seven women are hanging on the tree. He gives her the wale of tree, river, and sword. She chooses the sword; would be loath to spot his coat; whips off his head before the coat is half off. The head says there is a pipe in the saddle; she thinks no good can come of playing a murderer's pipe. She meets first the father, then the mother; they think that must be Schon-AIbert's horse. That may be, she says; I have not seen him since yesterday. She sets the pipe to her mouth, when she reaches her father's gate, and the murderers come like hares on the wind.
BB. Alfred Miiller, Volkslieder aus dem Erzgebirge, p. 92, 'Schbu Ulrich' [und Trautendelein], 36 vv. (Kbhler.) Like T, without the song.
CC. A. Schlosser, Deutsche Volkslieder aus Steiermark, 1881, p. 338, No 309, 'Der Ritter und die Maid.' (Kohler: not yet seen by me.)
DD. Curt Miindel, Elsassische Volkslieder, p. 12, No 10, a fragment of fifteen verses. As Anna sits by the Rhine combing her hair, Heinrich comes along on his horse, sees her weep, and asks why. It is not for gold and not for goods, but because she is to die that day. Heinrich draws his sword, runs her through, and rides home. He is asked why his sword is red, and says he has killed two doves. They say the dove must be Anna.
32 b. H, line 10. Read: umbrunnen.
39 a, line 1. Read: contributed by Hoffmann.
39 a, third paragraph. Kozlowski, Lud, p. 54, No 15, furnishes a second and inferior but still important form of A (Masovian).
A b. Ligar (afterwards Jasia, Golo) bids Kasia take all she has. She has already done this, and is ready to range the world with him. Suddenly she asks, after they have been some time on their way, What is that yonder so green? Jasia replies, Our house, to which we are going. They go on further, and Kasia again inquires abruptly, What is that yonder so white? "That is my eight wives, and you shall he the ninth: you are to die, and will be the tenth." "Where is the gold, the maidens' gold?" "In the linden, Kasia, in the linden; plenty of it." "Let me not die so wretchedly; let me draw your sword for once." She drew the sword, and with one stroke Jasia's head was off.
39 b. To the Polish versions are further to be added: NH, Piosnki wiesniacze znad Dzwiny, p. 41, No 51; OO, Roger, p. 78, No 138; PP, Roger, p. 69, No 125; QQ, ib., p. 79, No 140 ; RR, p. 81, No 142; S3, p. 79, No 139. The last three are imperfect, and QQ, RR, have a beginning which belongs elsewhere. Jasia suggests to Kasia to get the key of the new room from her mother by pretending headache, and bids her take gold enough, NN, OO. They go off while her mother thinks that Kasia is sleeping, NN, OO, QQ. They come to a wood, NN, PP (which is corrupt here), SB; first or last, to a deep stream, NN, OO, QQ, SS; it is red sea in RR, as in J. Jasia bids Kasia return to her mother, NN (twice). RR ; bids her take off her rich clothes, OO, to which she answers that she has not come here for that. John throws her into the water, NN, OO, QQ, SS, from a bridge in the second and third. Her apron catches on a stake or post; she begs John for help, and gets for answer, " I did not throw you in to help you: you may go to the bottom," OO. She swims to a stake, to which she clings, and John hews her in three, QQ. Fishermen draw out the body, and carry it to the church, NN, OO. She .apostrophizes her hair in QQ, SS, as in G, I, J, and in the same absurd terms in QQ as in J. John is pursued and cut to pieces in OO, also broken on the wheel. PP closely resembles German ballads of the third class. Katie shouts three times: at her first cry the grass curls up; at the second the river overflows; the third wakes her mother, who rouses her sons, saying, Katie is calling in the wood. They find John with a bloody sword; he says he has killed a dove. They answer, No dove, but our 6ister, and maltreat him till he tells what he has done with his victim: "I have hidden her under the yew-bush; now put me on the wheel."
39 b, line 13 of the middle paragraph. Read Piosnki for Pies'ni, and omit the quotation marks in this and the line before.
40 b, line 2 (the girl's adding her hair to lengthen the cord). In the tale of the Sea-horse, Schiefner, Awarische Texte, Memoirs of the St Petersburg Academy, vol. xix, No 6, p. 11 f, a sixty-ell rope being required to rescue a prince from a well into which he had been thrown, and no rope forthcoming, the daughter of a seaking makes a rope of the required length with her hair, and with this the prince is drawn out. Dr Reiuhold Kohler, who pointed out this- incident to me, refers in his notes to the texts, at p. vii f, to the song of Siidai Miirgiin, Radloff, II, 627-31, where Siidai Morgan's wife, having to rescue her husband from a pit, tries first his horse's tail, and finds it too short, then her hair, which proves also a little short. A maid is then found whose hair is a hundred fathoms long, and her hair being tied on to the horse's tail, and horse, wife, and maid pulling together, the hero is drawn out. For climbing up by a maid's hair, see, farther, Kohler's note to Gonzenbach, No 53, II, 286.
40 b, line 7. A message is sent to a father by a daughter in the same way, in Chodzko, Les Chants historiques de l'Ukraine, p. 75; cf. p. 92, of the same. Tristram sends messages to Isonde by linden shavings inscribed with runes: Sir Tristrem, ed. Kolbing, p. 56, st. 187; Tristrams Saga, cap. 54, p. 68, ed. Kolbing; Gottfried von Strassburg, vv 14427—441.
40 b, line 36. For G, I, read G, J.
40, note f- In a lluthenian ballad a girl who runs away from her mother with a lover tells her brothers, who have come in search of her, I did not leave home to go back again with you: Golovatsky, Part I, p. 77, No 32; Part HI, I, p. 17, No 4, p. 18, No 5. So, " I have not poisoned you to help you," Part I, p. 206, No 32, p. 207, No 38.
41a, second paragraph. Golovatsky, at I, 116, No 29, has a ballad, found elsewhere without the feature here to be noticed, in which a Cossack, who is watering his horse whlle a maid is drawing water, describes his home as a Wonderland, like John in Polish Q. "Come to the Ukraine with the Cossacks," he says. "Our land is not like this: with us the mountains are golden, the water is mead, the grass is silk ; with us the willows bear pears and the girls go in gold." She yields; they go over one mountain and another, and when they have crossed the third the Cossack lets his horse graze. The maid falls to weeping, and asks the Cossack, Where are your golden mountains, where the water that is mead, the grass that is silk? He answers, No girl of sense and reason engages herself to a young Cossack. So in Zegota Pauli, P. l. ruskiego, p. 29, No 26 = Golovatsky, I, 117, No 30, where the maid rejoins to the glowing description, I have ranged the world : golden mountains I never saw; everywhere mountains are of stone, and everywhere rivers are of water; very like the girl in Grundtvig, 82 B, st. 7 ; 183 A 6, E 5, 6.
41b, last paragraph. Several Bohemian versions are to be added to the single example cited from Waldau's Bohmische Granaten. This version, which is presumed to have been taken down by Waldau himself, may be distinguished as A. B, Susil, Moravske* Narodni Pi'sne, No 189, p. 191, 'Vrah,' ' The Murderer,' is very like A. C, Susil, p. 193. D, Erben, Prostonrirodni ceske' Pi'sne a Kikadla, p. 480, No 16, ' Zabite devce,' 'The Murdered Maid.' B, p. 479, No 15, ' Zabitd sestra,' 'The Murdered Sister.' B has a double set of names, beginning with Black George, — not the Servian, but "king of Hungary," — and ending with Indriasch. The maid is once called Annie, otherwise Katie. At her first call the grass becomes green; at the second the mountain bows; the third the mother hears. C has marvels of its own. Anna entreats John to allow her to call to her mother. "Call, call," he says, " you will not reach her with your call; in this dark wood, even the birds will not hear you." At her first call a pine-tree in the forest breaks ; at the second the river overflows ; at the third her mother rises from the grave. She calls to her sons to go to Anna's rescue, and they rise from their graves. The miscreant John confesses that he has buried their sister in the wood. They strike off his head, and put a hat on the head, with an inscription in gold letters, to inform people what his offence has been. There is a gap after the seventh stanza of D, which leaves the two following stanzas unintelligible by themselves: 8, Choose one of the two, and trust nobody; 9, She made her choice, and shouted three times towards the mountains. At the first cry the mountain became green ; at the second the mountain bowed backwards; the third the mother heard. She sent her sons off; they found their neighbor John, who had cut off their sister's head. The law-abiding, and therefore modern, young men say that John shall go to prison and never come out alive. In B the man, a young hunter, says, Call Jive times; not even a wood-bird will hear you. Nothing is said of the first call; the second is heard by the younger brother, who tells the elder that their sister must be in trouble. The hunter has a bloody rifle in his hand: how he is disposed of we are not told. All these ballads but C begin with the maid cutting grass, and all of them have the dove that is "no dove, but our sister."
Fragments of this ballad are found, F, in Susil, p. 112, No 113, 'Nevesta nes Vastnice,' 'The Unhappy Bride ;' G, p. 171, No 171, 'Zbojce,' 'The Murderer;' and there is a variation from B at p. 192, note 3, which is worth remarking, H. F, sts 11-14 : "Get together what belongs to you; we will go to a foreign land;" and when they came to the turf, "Look my head through." * Every hair she laid aside she wet with a tear. And when they came into the dark of the wood he cut her into nine [three] pieces. G. Katie meets John in a meadow; they sit down on the grass. "Look my head through." She weeps, for she says there is a black fate impending over her; "a black one for me, a red one for thee." He gets angry, cuts off her head, and throws her into the river, for which he is hanged. H. He sprang from his horse, robbed the maid, and laughed. He set her on the grass, and bade her look
* "Cette action, si pcu sc'ante pour nous, est accomplie dans maint conte grec, allemand, etc., par des jeunes fdles sur leurs amants, sur des dragons par les princesses qu'ils ont enlevees, et, meme dans une le'gende bulgare en vers, saint Georges recoit le meme service de la demoiselle expose'e au dragon, dont il va la de'livrer. Dozon, Contes albanais, p. 27, note. In the Bulgarian legend referred to, Bulgarski narodni pesni, by the brothers Miladinov, p. 31, tho saint having dozed off during the operation, the young maid sheds tears, and a burning drop falls on the face of George, and wakes him. This recalls the Magyar ballad, Molnrfr Anna, see p. 46. A Cretan legend of St George has the same trait: Jeannaraki, p. 2, v. 41. Even a dead lover recalled to the earth by his mistress, in ballads of theLenore class, asks the same service: Golovatsky, II. 70S, No 12; Susil, p. HI, No 112, Umrlec,' ' The Dead Man.'
Lis head through. Every hair she examined she dropped a tear for. "Why do you weep, Katie? Is it for your crants?" "I am not weeping for my crants, nor am I afraid of your sword. Let me call three times, that my father and mother may hear." Compare German H 10, 11 ; Q 8-10, etc., etc.
42 a. These Ruthenian ballads belong with the other Slavic parallels to No 4: A, Zegota Pauli, P. l. ruskiego, p. 21 = Golovatsky, III, I, 149, No 21; B, Golovatsky, III, I, 172, No 46. A. A man induces a girl to go off with him in the night. They wander over one land and another, and then feel need of rest. Why does your head ache? he asks of her. Are you homesick? "My head does not ache; I am not homesick." He takes her by the white sides and throws her into the deep Donau, saying, Swim with the stream; we shall not live together. She swims over the yellow sand, crying, Was I not fair, or was it my fate? and he dryly answers, Fair; it wag thy fate. In B it is a Jew's daughter that is wiled away. They go in one wagon; another is laden with boxes [of valuables?] and pillows, a third with gold pennies. She asks, Where is your house? Over those hills, he answers. He takes her over a high bridge, and throws her into the Donau, with, Swim, since you were not acquainted with our way, our faith!
42 a. A, line 2. Read : Puymaigre.
43 a. D. Add: Poesies populaires de la France, IV, fol. 332, Chanson de l'Aunis, Charente Inferieur; but even more of the story is lost.
44 a. A ballad in Casetti e Imbriani, C. p. delle Provincie meridionali, II, 1, begins like ' La Contadina alia Fonte ' (see p. 393 a), and ends like ' La Monferrina Incontaminata.' Of the same class as the last is, I suppose, Nannarelli, Studio comparativo sui Canti popolari di Arlena, p. 51, No 50 (Kohler), which I regret not yet to have seen.
45 a. Portuguese C, D, in Alvaro Rodrigues de Azevedo, Romanceiro do Archipelago da Madeira, p. 57, 'Estoria do Bravo-Franco,' p. 60, ' Gallo-frango.'
47. A story from Neumiinster about one Giirtniicheel, a famous robber, in Mullenhoft", p. 87, No 2, blends features of 'Hind Etin,' or ' The Maid and the Dwarf-King,' No 41, with others found in the Magyar ballad, p. 45 f. A handsome wench, who had been lost seven years, suddenly reappeared at the home of her parents. She said that she was not at liberty to explain where she had been, but her mother induced her to reveal this to a stone near the side-door, and taking up her station behind the door heard all. She had been carried off by a robber ; had lived with him seven years, and borne him seven children. The robber, who had otherwise treated her well, had refused to let her visit her home, but finally had granted her this permission upon her promising to say nothing about him. When the time arrived for her daughter to go back, the mother gave her a bag of peas, which she was to drop one by one along the way. She was kindly received, but presently the robber thought there was something strange in her ways. He laid his head in her lap, inviting her to perform the service so common in like cases. While she was doing this, she could not but think how the robber had loved her and how he was about to be betrayed by her, and her remorseful tears dropped on his face. "So you have told of me I" cried the astute robber, springing up. He cut off the children's heads and strung them on a willow-twig before her eyes, and was now coming to her, when people arrived, under the mother's conduct, who put a stop to his further revenge, and took their own. See the note, Mullenhoff, p. 592 f.
57 a. D. Insert: d. A stall-copy lent me by Mrs Alexander Forbes, Liberton, Edinburgh. (See p. 23, note §.)
62 b. Insert after c:
d. 1 1,2. Have ye not heard of fause Sir John,
Wha livd in the west country?
After 2 a stanza nearly as in b.
5 wanting.
61. But he 's taen a charm frae aff his arm.
63. follow him.
72. five hundred.
73. the bravest horse.
81. So merrily.
84. Which is called Benan Bay.
9, 11, wanting.
121. Cast aff, cast aff.
124. To sink.
13. Nearly as in b.
14. 'Cast aff thy coats and gay mantle,
And smock o Holland lawn,
For their owre costly and owre guid
To rot in the sea san.'
15. 'Then turn thee round, I pray, Sir John,
See the leaf flee owre the tree,
For it never befitted a book-learned man
A naked lady to see.'
Sir John being a Dominican friar, according to the historical preface.
16. As fause Sir John did turn him round,
To see the leaf flee owre the [tree],
She grasped him in her arms sma,
And flung him in the sea.
17. 'Now lie ye there, ye wild Sir John,
Whar ye thought to lay me;
Ye wad hae drownd me as naked 's I was born,
But ye's get your claes frae me!'
18. Her jewels, costly, rich and rare,
She straight puts on again;
She lightly springs upon her horse,
And leads his by the rein.
213. 0 that's a foundling.
22. Then out and spake the green parrot,
He says, Fair May Culzean,
O what hae ye done wi yon brave knight?
23. 'Haud your tongue, my pretty parrot,
An I 'se be kind to thee;
For where ye got ae handfu o groats,
My parrot shall get three.'
25. 'There came a cat into my cage,
Had nearly worried me,
And I was calling on May Culzean
To come and set me free.'
27 wanting.
283. Carleton sands.
292. Was dashed.
293. The golden ring.
__________________________
Additions and Corrections from Volume 2:
4. Lady Isabel and the Elf-Knight.
P. 24. May Colvin in Ireland. According to a Connemara story given briefly in Once a Week, II, 53 f, July 2, 1864, one Captain Webb was wont to ill-use young women, and then strip them and throw them into the Murthering Hole, not far from Maarn. At last a girl induced him to turn his back, and then thrust him into the Hole. P. Z. Round.
24b. The Flemish ballad is given by Fétis, Histoire Générale de la Musique, V, 59, “d'après un texte ancien qui a deux strophes de plus que celui de Willems.” G. L. K.
28 b. 'Asu kvaeti in fslenzk fornkvæði, II, 226, No 60, A-M : this copy D (E-M). Published in 1885. 41, and p. 487 f. Russian form, corrupted. On the oaken bridge stood Galya, there Galya stood and drew water, she drew water and spoke with Marko. “O Marko mine, what dost thou say to me? Come wander with me, youth; let us wander on foot through the dark night.” One field traversed, a second they crossed, and in the third lay down on the grass to sleep. The rain began to sprinkle, the fierce rain to fall, and Marko began to slumber. “O Marko mine, sleep not while with me; bare your sword and fight with me.” Young Galya vanquished Marko; she conquered Marko, and rode, she mounted and rode over the level field. Galya arrives at the new gate; there stands Marko's mother, more beautiful than gold. “Young Galya, what can I say? Have you seen Marko near my house?” “Oh, hush, mother; weep not, mourn not. Thy Marko has married in the field; he has taken to himself a fine young lady, a grave in the meadow.” Trudy, V, 425, No 816. A man beguiles a girl with tales of a land where the rivers are of honey, where pears grow on willows, and maidens are clothed in gold. Trudy, V, 335, No 660. In one version of this ballad a cuckoo flies up and bids the maid not listen to the Cossack's tales: “I have flown all over the world, and I have never seen golden mountains, nor eaten pears from willow-trees, nor beheld maidens clad in gold.”
41 a, and 487 a. A maid going to the ford for water meets Marko, and suggests that he should propose for her; if her mother will not consent, they will roam. They cross one field and two, and lie down on the grass in a third. He is falling asleep, when she wakes him with a cry that they are pursued. Marko is overtaken and his head cut off. Trudy, V, 226, No 454. No 548, p. 278, is nearly the same. No 690, p. 352, resembles in part No 454, and partly Golovatsky, I, 116.
42 a and 488 a, A. A lover takes his love by her white hands, leads her to the Danube, seizes her by the white sides, and flings her in. She asks whether she is ugly, or whether it is her ill fate. Trudy, V, 166, No 339. In Poésies pop. de la France, MS., VI, 278, Poésies pop. de la Corrèze, a ballad called ‘Chanson du brave Altizar’ is mentioned as a variant of “Dion et la Fille du Roi, and, fol. 321 of the same volume, a version from Mortain, Basse Normandie, is said to have been communicated, which, however, I have not found. These may both belong with the French ballads at II, 356.
43 a. E. Another copy in Guillon, Chansons pop. de l'Ain, p. 85. Add I: “Monsieur de Savigna, Decombe, Chansons pop. d’Ille-et-Vilaine, p. 264, No 92. The ballad begins like A, B, but the conclusion is inverted. The fair one is thrown into a pond; M. Savigna cuts away with his sword the plant she seizes when she comes up from the bottom the fourth time; she asks, If you ever go back, where will you say you left me? and he answers, In the big wood full of robbers.
59. F. In the catalogue of the British Museum, ? London 1710 ?”
60. Add G:
G. British Museum, Manuscript Addit. 20094. 'The Knight and the Chief's Daughter,' communicated to Mr. T. Crofton Croker in 1829, as remembered by Mr. W. Pigott Rogers, and believed by Mr. Rogers to have been learned by him from an Irish nursery-maid.
1 'Now steal me some of your father's gold,
And some of your mother's fee,
And steal the best steed in your father's stable,
Where there lie thirty three.'
2 She stole him some of her father's gold,
And some of her mother's fee,
And she stole the best steed from her father's stable,
Where there lay thirty three.
3 And she rode on the milk-white steed,
And he on the barb so grey,
Until they came to the green, green wood,
Three hours before it was day.
4 'Alight, alight, my pretty colleen,
Alight immediately,
For six knight's daughters I drowned here,
And thou the seventh shall be.'
5 'Oh hold your tongue, you false knight villain,
Oh hold your tongue,' said she;
''Twas you that promised to marry me,
For some of my father's fee.'
6 'Strip off, strip off your jewels so rare,
And give them all to me;
I think them too rich and too costly by far
To rot in the sand with thee.'
7 'Oh turn away, thou false knight villain,
Oh turn away from me;
Oh turn away, with your back to the cliff,
And your face to the willow-tree.'
8 He turned about, with his back to the cliff,
And his face to the willow-tree;
So sudden she took him up in her arms,
And threw him into the sea.
9 'Lie there, lie there, thou false knight villain,
Lie there instead of me;
'T was you that promised to marry me,
For some of my father's fee.'
10 'Oh take me by the arm, my dear,
And hold me by the hand,
And you shall be my gay lady,
And the queen of all Scotland.'
11 'I'll not take you by the arm, my dear,
Nor hold you by the hand;
And I won't be your gay lady,
And the queen of all Scotland.'
12 And she rode on the milk-white steed,
And led the barb so grey,
Until she came back to her father's castle,
One hour before it was day.
13 And out then spoke her parrot so green,
From the cage wherein she lay:
Where have you now been, my pretty colleen,
This long, long summer's day?
14 'Oh hold your tongue, my favourite bird,
And tell no tales on me;
Your cage I will make of the beaten gold,
And hang in the willow-tree.'
15 Out then spoke her father dear,
From the chamber where he lay:
Oh what hath befallen my favourite bird,
That she calls so loud for day?
16 ''Tis nothing at all, good lord,' she said,
''Tis nothing at all indeed;
It was only the cat came to my cage-door,
And I called my pretty colleen.'
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Additions and Corrections Volume 4:
The copy of ‘May Collin’ which follows is quite the best of the series C–G. It is written on the same sheet of paper as the “copy of some antiquity” used by Scott in making up his ‘Gay Goss Hawk’ (ed. 1802, II, 7). The sheet is perhaps as old as any in the volume in which it occurs, but may possibly not be the original. ‘May Collin’ is not in the same hand as the other ballad. Both hands are of the 18th century. According to the preface to a stall-copy spoken of by Motherwell, Minstrelsy, p. lxx, 24, “the treacherous and murder-minting lover was an ecclesiastic of the monastery of Maybole,” and the preface to D d makes him a Dominican friar. So, if we were to accept these guides, the ‘Sir’ would be the old ecclesiastical title and equivalent to the ‘Mess’ of the copy now to be given.
The copy of ' May Collin ' which follows is quite the best of the series C-G. It is written on the same sheet of paper as the "copy of some antiquity" used by Scott in making up his 'Gay Goss Hawk' (ed. 1802, II, 7). The sheet is perhaps as old as any in the volume in which it occurs, but may possibly not be the original. 'May Collin ' is not in the same hand as the other ballad.
According to the preface to a stall-copy spoken of by Motherwell, Minstrelsy, p. \xx, 24, "the treacherous and murder-minting lover was an ecclesiastic of the monastery of Maybole," and the preface to D d (see I, 488) makes him a Dominican friar. So, if we were to accept these guides, the 'Sir' would be the old ecclesiastical title and equivalent to the 'Mess' of the copy now to be given.
[H.] 'May Collin,' MS. at Abbotsford. Scotch Ballads, Materials for Border Minstrelsy, No. 146.
1 May Collin . . .
. . was her father’s heir,
And she fell in love with a falsh priest,
And she rued it ever mair.
2 He followd her butt, he followd her benn,
He followd her through the hall,
Till she had neither tongue nor teeth
Nor lips to say him naw.
3 ‘We’ll take the steed out where he is,
The gold where eer it be,
And we’ll away to some unco land,
And married we shall be.’
4 They had not riden a mile, a mile,
A mile but barely three,
Till they came to a rank river,
Was raging like the sea.
5 ‘Light off, light off now, May Collin,
It’s here that you must die;
Here I have drownd seven king’s daughters,
The eight now you must be.
6 ‘Cast off, cast off now, May Collin,
Your gown that’s of the green;
For it’s oer good and oer costly
To rot in the sea-stream.
7 ‘Cast off, cast off now, May Collin,
Your coat that’s of the black;
For it’s oer good and oer costly
To rot in the sea-wreck.
8 ‘Cast off, cast off now, May Collin,
Your stays that are well laced;
For thei’r oer good and costly
In the sea’s ground to waste.
9 ‘Cast [off, cast off now, May Collin,]
Your sark that’s of the holland;
For [it’s oer good and oer costly]
To rot in the sea-bottom.’
10 ‘Turn you about now, falsh Mess John,
To the green leaf of the tree;
It does not fit a mansworn man
A naked woman to see.’
11 He turnd him quickly round about,
To the green leaf of the tree;
She took him hastly in her arms
And flung him in the sea.
12 ‘Now lye you there, you falsh Mess John,
My mallasin go with thee!
You thought to drown me naked and bare,
But take your cloaths with thee,
And if there be seven king’s daughters there
Bear you them company.’
13 She lap on her milk steed
And fast she bent the way,
And she was at her father’s yate
Three long hours or day.
14 Up and speaks the wylie parrot,
So wylily and slee:
‘Where is the man now, May Collin,
That gaed away wie thee?’
15 ‘Hold your tongue, my wylie parrot,
And tell no tales of me,
And where I gave a pickle befor
It’s now I’ll give you three.’