II. Comparative Analysis
[The end pages (starting with the Summary) and beginning have been briefly proofed. The middle parts are mainly raw text.]
[This section begins on page 180. I will be presenting part of this chapter since I'm presenting excerpts about the English language versions. Most of the variants compared do not have a close relationship to the English/Scottish/NorthAmerican versions. They are included; however endless pages have no information about the English/Scottish/NorthAmerican versions.
At the end of this section (p. 211) there is a 8. Summary, 9. Original Content, 10. Oldest Forms, 11 Place of Origin which is are the important parts of this book.
R. Matteson 2014]
II. COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS
1. General Survey of the Variant Material
Several earlier investigators have expressed the opinion that the ballad of Lady Isabel and the False Knight is one of the most widely spread and frequently sung ballads in the world. It seems, however, that it is only in the present study, with its inclusion of the hitherto unknown areas of distribution of the ballad Lithuania, Estonia, Ingermanland, Finland, Siberia, the West Indies and Argentina - that the real boundaries of the ballad have been fixed. And I have come across but two earlier references to the existence of the Australian variant[1].
The distribution of the ballad variants geographically is as follows:
Europe 1691 variants
Asia 2 >>
North America 162 >>
The West Indies 4 >>
South America 5 >>
Australia 1 >>
The centre of the ballad's geographical distribution is Europe, not only quantitatively but also qualitatively for its non-European forms, are clearly associated with certain European forms, as is revealed by the variant analysis:
- Asiatic variants are associated with the Great Russian Steppe Form.
- The English and Negro variants in North America are associated with the Scottish May Colvin Form[2].
- The French variants in North America are associated with the French King's Daughter and Renaud Form.
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1 Belden 5; Folk-Lore XLIII,347.
2 As far as North American variants are concerned it is interesting to find that many of them have been encounterecl in the eastern part of the continent but none at all west of the line Nebraska-Texas.
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- The variants in the West Indies are associated with the Spanish The Princess Isabel Form.
- The South American variants are associated with the Spanish ,Rico Franco Form.
- The Australian variant is associated with the Scottish May Colvin Form. Obviously, then, the ballad is European. With the exception of the Balkans it has spread throughout the continent of Europe. Ethnologically the variants of ballad are classified as follows (adding the non-European variants to the European variants with which they are associated):
Germanic 800 variants
Breton 17
Walloon 2
Romance 163
Slavic 472
Baltic 4
Finno-Ugrian 407
The material investigated comprises a total of 356 (=19.09 per cent) manuscript variants not published before. These are:
Germanic 151 variants
Norwegian 21
Scottish-American 26
Breton 1
French 4
Estonian 153
2. The Persons of the Ballad
Principal Characters
The popular names or epithets of the principal characters of the ballad, the knight and the maid, have been given together with each version in order to provide an accurate general picture. The variant analysis shows the Germanic-Walloon-Romance names to be fairly consistent in that the principal characters, with some exceptions, are a knight and a king's daughter, which
follows the usage of genuine chivalric poetry. But in the Slavic, Baltic and Finno-Ugrian ballad areas the appellations of the principal personages differ, so greatly and diversely from the corresponding, relatively consistent definitions
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of the preceding regions that we seem quite clearly to be moving from the centre towards the periphery. The only similarities then remaining between the centre (Germanic, Walloon and Romance variants) and the periphery (Slavic, Baltic and Finno-Ugrian variants) are the outlandish appearance and strangeness of the knight and the maid's wealth revealed
in the abundance of her trinkets, money and other property. Despite the diversity of names given to the knight the appellations used in the various ballad areas refer to a few accurately-described principal figures with a clearly common identity, as will emerge from a later phase of the study. These dominant personages are:
- in the Flemish-Dutch variants Halewijnwith his different transformations;
- in the German variants Ulinger, (Ilrich, Adelger etc. transformations;
- in the Walloon-French variants Renaud;
- in the French-Italian sailor form the handsome sailor who takes the maid to sea;
- in the Scottish-American variants the etf knight, the false-hearted knight, villain etc.;
- in the Slavic variants the green hunter, gypsy, Cossack, soldier, sailor, bargee, or a singing or whistling rider named Jai who has come from distant foreign parts; ot a procession bound for Kazan and enticing the maid to go along with them, to whose members the maid. says that the mountains of their home district are skulls of the dead, the meadows hairs of corpses and the
rivers their blood; or he is a soldier who takes the maid into the middle of the sea;
- in the Finnish variants the Son of Mantu, Hannus the German from Island, Kauko or Vietrikkri the Ruddl (Veitikke, Vietrikka etc.);
- in the Estonian variants Jurg (after the name of the mounted knight, St. George).
Subordinate Characters
Two families form the background of the ballad: that of the maid and, opposing it, that of the knight. The members of the maid's family and other persons connected with the maid warn her against the knight and this often results in the maid's leaving home secretly; they help the maid when she is in distress and finally rejoice or grieve depending on whether the maid is saved or destroyed. The members of the knight's family and other persons connected with him (the knight's community), on the other hand, appear as either instigators of his killing of the maid or accomplices; in the cases where the maid kills the knight they accuse, threaten or condemn the maid.
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Insofar as there are deviations from these basic features it is not difficult to find their origin in obscuration, as for instance, in the Finnish poems of Ingermanland and Southern Karelia where the maid's brother criticises his sister's deed. But in the variants of Eastern and lr{orthern Karelia, where the initial feature has been preserved, the criticiser is the knight's brother.
In the light of comparative analysis the attitude of the ballad's subordinate characters in different ballad areas is as follows:
The Maid's Parents
The Maid is Saved
- The parents warn their daughter against leaving with the knight: GF-D I-Ii, r1*r4, 16-rg; RI zB.
- The mother advises her daughter to kill the knight: FE I37.
- The knight entices the maid into leaving her father, mother, brothers, sisters and her bridegroom: GSw I. The maid's parents consent to sending their daughter off with the knight: GF-D te, 15; SSI 2-g; SSe r.
- The entire court receives the knight on his arrival at the maid's home: SR g; SP 137. The maid leaves her parents secretly: GD I-3; 5; SSI r, 4-6; SP 7-17, r+o- r4r; SR 3, Io, 15, rB, 2g-29; BLi [t]-S; NAS I-3,5-22, Q5-40, 44-6r, 63 -7o, 73-75,
77-78, Bo-86, BB-r05, I07-r I5, I 17, r19-I23, rz5; NAN r.
- The maid's parents are already dead: GG 5-9, I3-I5.
- The parents disown their daughter for running away with the knight: FH 25.
- The maid guesses that her father will set off to search for her: SR 4r.
- The mother sends the brothers to find and aid their sister: SP 7-lg.
- The father goes to the rescue himself and kills the knight: GG 76. Having killed the knight the maid returns to her father's home: GF *D r-t3, r5-r7; GD I,3,5-7, r8-zo; GSw I-3; GN r-z; GIc r; GSc 3=91 GE r -3; I'{AS r*2, 5-22, 25-30, Z2-42, 47, 4g-GI, 63 -7o' 73-75, 77, Bo-ror, r03-Iog, III, II3-II5, r17-r2Z; NAN I.
- The king hears at the dawn of the day his daughter's return from her nocturnal journey: GE r; GSc S-4,6; NAS 16,2I,35, 5+,59; AuS r. The count hears his daughter return: GSc 7.
- The old lord hears his daughter return: NAS Br.
- The old father hears his daughter return: GE r'*2; NAS z, 10, 15, 17, 22, 32, 42, 6o, 63-64, 66 -67, 72, 77, Bo, 90-93, 99, tog, I 14-I15.
- The old man hears the return: NAS 5-7, rB-tg, 23r 25-27,49, [So-5r], 52, 6r, 77,85, g6, rol, Io5, r2r.
- The old folks [parents] hear the maid return: NAS 13, r22.
-- The maid's mother hears her daughter return: NAS g, I r; NAN i.
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The maid arouses her parents and forbids them to say her nocturnal journey: NAS tg.
- The maid tells her parents of her nocturnal adventures: SC gg; SP r.
- The maid promises to tell her parents and friends of what she did to the knight: BF r; WB I -e; RF 3, B, 20, z4; RP 6.
- The parents rejoice at the return of their daughter: GF-D r *6, Io, 17.
- The father rejoices at the return of his daughter: GF -D 16. Upon her return the maid drinks to the health of her father and mother: NAF z.
- The maid deplores her deed to her mother: FF 76.
- The mother advises her daughter to flee the punishment that will come for killing the knight: FF rS2.
- The maid's mother (>>treacherous woman> FF ror) condemns her daughter's deed [the feature is distinctly an obscuration, for the treacherous woman and chiding the maid features are traits that belong to the knight's mother]: FF ror, ro3, ro5-ro7, rrr.
- A bee brings the maid's parents tidings of the knight's death [obscured, should be: a bee and a hare bring the tidings to the knight's parents] : FF IOr, I03, IIO.
- The maid's parents [should be: the knight's parents] hear a the lane when the maid kills the knight: FF 7o. On her way home the maid meets her own mother should knight's mother] : RI r r.
The Maid is Killed
- The parents had warned their daughter against leaving: GG zz9-246, 2+9-253.
- The mother had forbidden her daughter to speak to the knight: SP 4b, r rB, 2oo.
- The parents urge their daughter to go to Jai as he is a nobleman: SP r ro.
- The maid leaves secretly with the knight: SP z4-27,2o,32,25,3g, 42,44,46, q9-66, 68*7o,74-78, Bz*85, 87, 9r, 98, ror-ro4, ro6-ro8, rr5-rr6, r2o, tzz-tz9, rB2, I39.
- The mother does not want to go to help her daughter although she hears her weeping [because the daughter stole off secretly with the knight]: SC 46.
- The parents search for their lost daughter: RF 5o, 5z; GG zr7.
- The mother searches for her lost daughter: GF-D zo.
-The mother arouses the brothers in the night to pursue their sister: SR zo.
- The father sends the brothers in pursuit of their sister: SR 25.
- The maid calls on her father for help but he gives no answer: SP 74.
- The maid sends word to her parents not to expect her: SC 48; SR gB -gg.
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- The maid writes a letter to her parents to the effect that they need no longer prepare her dowry: SP r33.
- As she drowns the maid warns her mother not to let her other daughters go evil ways: SR 5.
_ _ A nightingale brings the maid's parents word of their daughter's death:
RF 5r.
- The mother asks the knight about her daughter and he says she is in
Cracow: SP t47-r48.
- As she dies the daughter bids her father farewell: Sp 34.
- The parents of the dead maid weep: SP 36.
- The father recognises the maid taken from the water as his daughter
(cf. the Estonian poems in which the fish is recognised as the maid): BF ro.
The Maid's Brothers
The Maid is Saved
- The brother warns his sister against going with the knight: GF-D rr,
r3- r+.
- The brother promises that the sister may go if she preserves her honour:
GF-D r*ro, r6-t7.
- The maid shouts for her brothers to help her, the brother or brothers
hear her, come to the rescue, kill the knight and take their sister back to
their home country: GG rg-27,29-34, g6*27,39-58, 6o-68, 70 -75, 77 *g2,
94-rOr, r03-ro7, rog*rro, r12, tt4-t26.
- The brothers compel their sister to reveal the knight's whereabouts
and they kill him: SP 7-r7.
- The brothers spread the nets and save their sister from the water: SP
r53 - r54.
- The brother hears his sister's cry and descends down a rope to help her:
SP r45-t46, tS2.
- The maid's foster brother kills the knight: BF 5.
_.__^ Th. knight says he has killed the maid's brothers: RS r-3; Rp r-5;
\,VIS r-3; SAS 3.
- The knight says he fears the maid's brorhers: SR zr.
The maid poisons her brother to prevent him from killing the knight:
SR zz.
On her way home the maid meets her own brother [should be: the
knight's brother] who enquires about the knight: RI r-6, B--g, rz, r4-t6,
rB*24.
- The maid drinks to the health of her brother and sister: NAF z.
- When the maid has killed the knight her brother goes to see what has
happened fshould be : the knight's brother goes to see]: FF r 2r_ 126, r29-
r33, r36, r1g*r4c, r+7-r49.
- When the maid kills the knight in her room her brother asks his wife
the cause of the noise in the lane (or in the maid's chamber) : FF 7o, gB, g7,
r2g-r23, r1g-14r, r4+-rq7, 166-r67.
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5. The Cunning of the Maid (Motif b)
The Undressing Redaction
- The maid asks the knight to take off his most valuable clothes for the act of slaying her since her blood will spurt far [the maid hopes thus to gain access to the knight's sword]: GF-D r*17; GG r-15, r7-r8.
- Vuksan asks permission to take off his cloak so that it will not become bloody: SK 4.
- The maid asks the knight to turn around until she has taken off her chemise [to be able, when the knight turns around, to push him into water]: GD r B -zo.
- The maid asks the knight to turn away so that he should not see a naked woman: GE r; GSc Z-7, g-ro; GM r; GIr r; BF 3; NAS r-2,4-r r, 16-tB, 2r-29, 25-Br, ZZ*4o, 48, 46-47, 49-5r, 53-6o, 6Z-76, Bo-86, BB-89, gr*g7, gg-ror, r03, r05-rog, rrr, rrB-r14, rr7-rrB, r2o._r24.
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- The maid asks the knight to turn away while she tightens the bands of her apron: SW 6.
- The maid asks the knight to bandage his eyes for it is not fitting for him to see a woman naked or undressing: BF r ; WB r ; RF I, 3, 7, 20, 24-26, 29.
- The maid asks the knight to tear away the thistles from the bank so that they will not scratch her bare white skin nor get entangled in her tresses: GE z.
- The maid asks the knight to dig up the briars from the bank: NAS rg, 6r.
- The maid asks the knight to remove the nettles from the bank so that they will not mar (freckle) her white skin: GSc B; NAS r4-r5,32,77, rr9'
- The maid asks the knight to take off her shoes fto be able, when he stoops to do so, to kick him into the water]: BF z; RF 5, B, [9-tB], 2r-22' z7 -zB.
- The maid asks the knight to take off her stockings: RF 4, 23; NAF r .
- The maid asks the knight to take off her cloak: [WB z].
- The maid asks the knight to bend down from his horse and kiss her, upon which she makes him plunge into the water: GSc z.
^ - The maid catches holdof his horse's tail and while the horse pulls her ashore the knight himself is drowned: NAN I.
- The maid asks the knight for a knife to cut her belt which, she pretends, is too tight: BF 4.
- Th; maid aks the knight for a sword to open her beit: RI 25, 34.
- The maid blames her tight stays and asks for the sword to cut the laces: RF 3o *22, Z5; RI 27, 30-3I, 35.
-- The -uia ruyt h.r laces are so tangled that she cannot open them and asks for the sword to undo them: RI 26, 29,32*33-
- The maid first ties her laces secretly into a knot and then asks for a dagger to open them: RP 4 5.
- The maid asks the knight for a knife to cut the hem of her cloak: RS i.
- The maid asks the knight for his sword to cut leafy twigs with which to shade her horse: RI r -t6, rB, 20-22) 24.
- The maid asks for the sword to spur her horse : RI r 9.
- The maid asks the knight for the loan of his sword: RA 5; RI zB.
- The maid asks the knight for the loan of his dagger: RP r-3.
- The maid notices the dagger in the knight's belt: RP 6.
The maid notices the sword in the knight's sheath: RA 7; RI z3; SPT -2.
- The maid asks to be allorved to wield the knight's sword a little: SP 3.
- The maid asks for the knight's cloak: SP 6.
-- The maid asks for the knife to cut fruit: BF 6, B-9.
- The maid says she is weeping for a golden knife or golden dagger with which to cut apear: RA ro; RS 2-3; WIS r-3.
- The maid is crying over what she has lost to the knight but the knight remains silent fan obscured feature which could just as well belong to the c motif when thJmaid weeps for her lost honour, but analysis shows the maid's weeping is always associated in the Princess Isabel Form" with the feature of
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cunning in the maid, which suggests that the variant refers to this very feature:SAS 3.
- The maid asks the knight for his knife to cut flowers: BF 5.
- The maid asks the woman looking through the window for a knife:
BF 7.
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8. Summary
The Characters of the Ballad
The following conclusions can be drawn from the analysis of the personages of the ballad:
(1) In the original ballad the maid was a king's daughter.
(2) The knight of the ballad is a nocturnal rider. Among the numerous names by which he is known in the different ballad areas the principal ones are: Halewijn, Ulinger, Ulrich, Aderger, Renaud, handsome sailor, elf knight, false-hearted knight, villain, wretch, green hunter, Cosiack, soldier, sailor, bargee, singing-or whistling rider of the name Jas, son oif Mantu, Hannus the German from Island, Kauko, Vietrikka the Ruddy and Jurg.
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(3) The distinctly portrayed. subordinate characters of the ballad are the parents and brothers and sisters of both principal characters. The other persons connected with the maid and the knight are nothing more or less than extras in the cast although in some transformed versions they have been given more character. In several cases the traits with which they are endowed. are easily identifiable as obscured features taken from the maid's brother or brothers of the same versions.
Of the maid's parents, her father the king assumes a degree of individuality. With the knight's parents, on the contrary, both in the a motif and the epilogue of some forms, it is the knight's mother that is very active either in urging her son to kill the daughter-in-law or in blaming the daughter-in-law for her son's death.
The attitude of the maid's parents appears most distinctly in the Flemish- Dutch Halewijn Form. Here they emphatically warn their daughter against going off with the knight since nobody that has followed him has ever returned. The same feature appears in the old Danish, Swedish and Norwegian forms and, somewhat obscured, in the Scottish-American-Australian May Colvin Form and several Siavic forms where the maid steals off or has eloped secretly with the knight. Some Slavic forms notwithstanding, the ballad story of the old forms enumerated here ends rvith the maid's return home as the victor. The ballad story of the Halewijn Form is the most complete and logical of these forms: the maid's parents rejoice at their daughter's return, so much so that they arrange a feast in honour of the event; the knight's parents cross the maid's path on her homeward journey enquiring after their son. The last feature in the German Halewijn Form, according to which the knight's mother also asks the maid why her clothes etc. are blood-stained, has travelled also to the Estonian poems; the feature is changed in the Newer German Form so that the question is put by the maid's brother to the knight who killed the maid. The feature as it appears in the ]rfewer German Form has later travelled as such to the Slavic forms.
The activity of the maid's brother or brothers is especially striking in the Older and Newer German Forms and in the Slavic forms associated with them. The Newer German Form, however, is clearly a transformation relatively close to the Older German Form. The only difference is that in the former the knight has already killed the maid in the forest before her brother or brothers have time to come to the rescue. A most prominent feature cornmon to both these forms is that the searching of the knight's head and putting him to sleep have been displaced from their original context, i.e. as the motif of the maid's cunning, and replaced by the cry motif. Both the Older and Newer German Form are consequently of a late date and the Slavic forms associated with them
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are still newer. The German variants at least retain the old features of musical enchantment and searching the knight's head; they are not alrvays found in the slavic forms. If we disregard the German and Slavic forms in question here we are ieft with the relativelv uniform ballad group according to which it is the maid that kilis the knight and not vice versa. This is also the general picture given by the variant material as a whole. since the active role of the maid's brother or brothers in killing the knight is a more recent formation, the logically most distinct and integral feature of the maid's brother also is that introduced by the Halewijn Form.
The Halewijn Form and the old Danish and, Norwegian Forms associated with it relate how the knight's brothers are encountered. by the maid on her way home, similarly to her meeting the knight's parents which is also in the Halewijn Form. It does seem evident therefore that the feature must be regarded as original. This feature is approached by the North Karelian feature of the Finnish poems: the knight's brother appears on the spot condemning the maid's deed and threatening her with court proceedings.
The maid's sister feature is confined in practice to the Halewijn Form, where the sister warns the maid against eloping with the knight. The polish feature in which the clving maid bids her sister farewell is of a late date and transformed.
The ballad's Germanic-Slavic variants are fairly consistent in their account of the knight's sisters: the maid meets them after she has slain the knight and they appear anxious about their brother's fate. The Estonian poems have two features connected with the knight's sisters. one of them, associated purely rvith the plot of the oldest forms of the ballad, narrates how the knight's sister asks the maid to explain the blood on her hands; the other feature is associated with the expanded epilogue, found in the Finnish poems also, where the knight's relations not only threaten and blame but also punish the maid.
(4) According to the redaction The Maid is saved everyone connected with the maid (the maid's community) agrees that her deed uras justifiable, even praiseworthy and an occasion for celebrating. This appears most clearly and concisely in the Halewijn Form. other scattered features, associated with this redaction, of interference in the course of events by, various persons connected with the maid -- judges, policemen) executioners etc. -- are distinctly the result of transformation and are in some cases associated expressly with the redaction The Maid is Killed.
The ballad gives a fairly uniform picture of the other persons connected with the knight: they usually appear as a host, group, procession, even as an entire village. This uniformity is most marked in the old Germanic forms according to which the maid comes across the other persons connected with
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the knight too on her nocturnal way home in addition to the members of the knight's family.
How the Knight Charms the Maid
It does seem that music is one of the knight's charms, perhaps his primary means of persuasion in view of the universality of the feature. Obviously even the original ballad began similarly to the Germanic, Romance, Slavic and Finnish ballads, with a description of the knight's fascinating music and its effect, music that made the maid susceptible and pliant to the knight's overtures and induced her to follow him in the strange wonderland where he was to wed her. The regular and universal occurrence of the three different redactions - music, wonderland and the proposal of marriage - is attributed to the fact they all belong to the original ballad whereas the Abduction Redaction does not.
The Scene of the Killing
Determining the original redaction of the scene of the murder or the place where the knight takes the maid on a nocturnal ride to kill her seems at first sight a rather difficult problem to resolve on the basis of the material introduced by the analysis. Besides the Sea Redaction the Gibbet Redaction seems to merit equal consideration in view of its frequency of occurrence. A further complication is that the Halewijn Form, among others, and the other old Germanic forms, which we have found above to contain the most original material, place the climax of the ballad in the lorest in the shadow of the gibbet. On the other hand the Bstonian-Finnish variants, containing very old materials, belong to the Knight's Home Redaction in this as in some other variants. But a closer examination of the contents of the ballad as a whole reveals that water is not far removed even in the Gibbet and Knight's Home.
Redactions:
(1) In the Halewijn Form the knight gives the maid three alternatives of death: sword, hanging or drowning. All these alternatives must have been practicable: the gibbet was near by a sword hung from the knight's belt and obviously but a short distance away there must have been the sea coast or some other water.
(2) In the same Halewijn Form the maid washes the knight's severed head immediately, wraps it in her apron and goes home; water was available.
(3) In the German forms there is a cold well, spring, brook etc' in the
forest.
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(4) In the French-Italian Sailor forms the knight and the maid sail to a country beyond the sea or to the knight's home.
(5) In the Estonian poems the maid escapes after her deed of slaughter to the sea, lake, river etc.
(6) It is clear from the Finnish variants that the seashore cannot be far away. The maid makes the beds on the water; after the knight has been killed the sea turns bloody; and, finalry, the knight,s mother comes down to the seashore to search for her dead son. The proximity of water, then, can be taken as a general feature and the Sea Redaction accepted, as an original redaction though in some forms the feature of arrival at the water's edge is obscured. or missing altogether.
The Cunning of the Maid
On arrival at the seashore, when the maid is faced with certain death in the form of the drowning she dreads, the ballad story is reaching its climax, its point of dramatic suspense, where the maid hits upon a solution which will save her. Even now the knight asks what type of death the maid would like to choose and instead of the dreaded death in the sea the maid decides on the sword. To prevent the maid's clothes from being stained. with blood and rotting in the sea they must be removed and the knight orders the maid to undress. The May Colvin and, Renaud Forms now proceed. directly to the solution: the maid invents a ruse which enables her to push the knight into the water. But this simple solution can hardly be originally, it would exclude the feature according to which the knight is killed with a sharp-edged weapon. Even in the Finnish forms, in which the knight's bed. was made up on the water, the knives were hidden in it edge-up. The sharp weapon feature is fairly consistent in its appearance in the ballad family as a whole. The Hatewijn Form seems to contain an intermediary stage in which the maid tells the knight to undress to enable her to get at his sword. The last-mentioned feature, the maid's endeavour to get hold of the knight,s weapon, is original in my opinion and in conformity with the spirit of the ballad. It is for this very purpose of gaining access to the weapon that the maid invents certain ruses, the most important of which is putting the knight to sleep and asking for the loan of a weapon on some pretext or other. The Lutling to Sleep Redaction[1] is, however, the more important and original of these two redactions - The Lulling to sleep and rlte Undressing Redaction - as the following tends to prove:
1 The lulling to sleep motif is very old in literature. In the story of Samson and Delilah the latter puts Samson to sleep in her lap (Judges 16: 19).
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(1) The old Danish-Swedish-Norwegian forms would then show the motif in its original form.
(2) The forms of the German Cr1 Redaction also contains the searching of the knight's head and his falling to sleep, but the feature has only travelled from its original context to motif a.
(3) The above applies to the Nicolai Form.
(4) The above also applies to the Anna Molndr Form.
(5) The French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese forms, where the principal motif is the request for the loan of a weapon on some pretext, are in actual fact concerned with the knight's falling asleep and the maid's request for the sword or dagger to open her belt or the laces of her stays when she starts to undress.
(6) In the Estonian-Finnish forms the knight is killed in his sleep.
The Killing
From this it emerges that the knight is killed with his own sword. The original feature of the killing motif consequently belongs to the Killing with Iron Redaction.The Throwing into the Water Redaction reflects the original feature: the maid casts into the sea the corpse of the knight she has killed. The origin of the Hanging Redaction probably derives from the choices of death the knight offers the maid, one of them hanging. The Burning Redaction is of a late date, similarity also the Soldier Redaction although it shows the very old feature of carrying the maid into the middle of the sea and drowning her there, which may have been what the knight of the ballad intended to do to the maid.
The Epilogue
The epilogue of the old Germanic forms, the Otder German Form and the Italian Knight's Daughter, Hungarian Anna Molntir and Scottish-American-Australian May Coluin Forms is simple and logical: having kitled the knight the maid rides home. The epilogue of the old Germanic forms contains an additional feature according to which the maid meets on her return journey the knight's relations and other persons connected with him. Both these features are original. On the other hand the epilogue of the Estonian and Finnish variants, although it relates in each case something of the matters occurring in the epilogue of the old Germanic variants, i.e. the exchange of words between the maid and the knight's relations, has expanded too much and has changed somewhat through the new additions. The Slavic forms again are forms of a late date associated with the German variants. The Halewijn Form, in connection with
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its exceedingly clear epilogue, contains a feature not preserved, even in the Danish-Swedish-Norrvegian forms; however, it still lives on, although transformed, in the Nicolai Form, i.e. the maid washes the knight's severed head, puts it in her apron and takes it with her. In the Nicolai Form the knight washes the maid's severed head. A similar feature appears in the Czech Katefinka Form and the Croat Unfortunate Daughter-in-law Form, both associated with the Newer German Form, in both of which the knight wraps the maid's head in a kerchief as the maid does with the knight's head in the Halewijn Form. There is reason to assume, then, that the maid's taking the knight,s head along with her is an original feature. It is a feature, moreover, which reflects Celtic influence and the Celtic custom of cutting off the enemy's head and carrying it home. Henri Hubert[1] relates in his studies of the Celts, quoting Posidonius who had traveled in Gaul, how a Celt who had been the writer's host had proudly shor'vn skulls in his house 'uvhich he had brought home as bootv, boasting of the large sums that the relations of the conquered had offered for the return of the heads. Severed heads also figure in old coins, amulets and monuments[2] illustrating Celtic mythology. Some coins of this type have a hole to enable them to be hung around the neck. The customs of the island Celts are the same as those of the continental Celts. In his investigation A Social History of Ancient lreland P. W. Joyce says of the cutting off of an enemy's head: >>This practice by the Irish is :,o often mentioned, that it is needless to give instances.>> [3]
The features of beheading and throwing the body into water, and the features in the German and Hungarian variants telling of maids whom the knight has already hung on the tree from which he intends to hang the king's daughter too, refer to ancient ritualistic circumstances. Georg Grupp mentions in his Kultur der alten Kelten und Germanen how the Celts and also the Teutons used to offer human beings as sacrifices to their gods, the victims, bodies or severed heads being hung either on trees or temple pillars or thrown into water[4].
Deserving of special mention is the feature of the Halewijn Form where the knight's severed head continues to speak, asking the maid to fetch the salve vessel from accurately defined places and to rub the neck severed by the maid, a human, with the salve. Obviously this concerns the magic feature of a wonder salve to which many investigators have referred[5]. This salve feature
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1 Hubert 231.
2 Forrer 37, 3g, 30, 10; Hubert 231; Moberg 11.
3 Joyce, History r5o; vide also John Revell Reinhardt 23, 99, 200.
4 Grupp 169-170, 258-9.
5 Vide below page 231.
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of the ballad. has a natural explanation in charms and spells, those ancient and. reliable sources of knowledge about folk poetry. A spell is recorded from as early as the roth century in The Elf Salve [MS Regius 12 D XVII, f. 123 ab (10th century) , (Leechbook)[1]], featuring the singing of a Mass as the charm and advising on how to make the salve and use it against spirits. The spell is as follows:
>>Make a salve against the race of elves and against spirits walking about at night and against women with whom the devil has sexual intercourse. Take the female hop-plant, wormwood, bishop's wort, lupine, verlain, henbane, harewort, viper's bugloss, sprouts of heathberry, leek, garlic, seeds of cleavers, cockle, fennel. Put the herbs in a vessel, set them under the altar, sing nine Masses over them, boil them in butter, and in sheep's fat, and a good quantity of holy salt, strain them through a cloth, throw the herbs into running water. If a man has any evil temptations, or is troubled by elves or nocturnal spirits, smear his face with this salve, and put something on his eves and where his body may be painful. And smoke him with incense and frequently make the sign of the cross on him. His condition will soon be better.
It is understandable that since people made salves and ointments for pains and diseases caused by spirits and in general against spirits and demons the elf knight was similaritv believed to have his salve against human beings. The folk poem thus reflects the beliefs of the people and the ballad of the false knight as a whole seems to be based on materials connected with beliefs.
9. The Original Content of the Ballad in the Light of Analysis
In the light of the analysis section of the presenl investigation the subject-matter of the archetype of the ballad of the false knight seems to have consisted of roughly the following:
a: The knight comes at night to the king's daughter, charms her with his music and tempts her into going away with him to a strange wonderland where he wilt marry her; they have a long nocturnal ride during which the knight is mysteriously silent, a circumstance which in itself arouses certain suspicions in the maid as to whether the knight is a human being at all; they arrive at the seashore where the knight tells the maid he is going to kill her and gives her three alternative deaths to choose from: the sword, hanging or drowning; b: in order to escape certain death the maid invents a ruse:
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1 Storms 245. No. 20.
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she puts the knight to sleep, trusses him up and c: kills him with his own sword, cuts his head off and throws the body into the water after which she d: rides home taking the knight's head with her; on her way home at night she encounters the false knight's relations and is forced to explain where the knight has gone, what has befallen him and why her own shoes, stockings or other clothes are blood-stained. Her explanation is that she has killed some animal (cock, goose, rabbit etc.) the preceding evening; but the knight's relations assert that she has killed the knight, and threaten her; at home, however, the maid is fated and praised for having killed that dreaded nocturnal rider who has already carried off so many victims co the sea.
10. The Oldest Forms of the Ballad
The popular forms of the ballad which seem to contain the most original materials are the so-called old Germanic forms, to which belong in my opinion the Halewijn Form, the Old Danish and Old Swedish Form and the Norwegian Form. Furthermore, fairly purely preserved original elements occur in the Scottish-American-Australian forms, in the French-Walloon Renaud Form, the Newer Danish Form and the Estonian forms; they are somewhat less clearly preserved in the Nicolai Form, the Older and Newer German Form, the Romance, Hungarian and Slavic forms associated with them and in the Finnish forms. But the further we proceed peripherally from the old Germanic forms the fainter become the original elements. The form which has perhaps the most numerous and the most purely preserved original materials is the Halewijn Form. The original and transformed material contained in its motifs can be tabulated as follows:
1a. The knight charms the maid by his song ==Original material
2a. The parents and other relations forbid the maid to go with the knight ==Original material
3a. The knight and the maid ride to the gibbet ==Transformed material
4a. The maid takes the sword as her choice of death ==Original Material
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1b: The maid asks the knight to take off his best clothes = =Transformed material
1c: The maid kills the knight with his own sword. The maid cuts off the knight's head and takes it with her==Original
Material
1d: The maid rides home. On her way home she meets the knight's relations and other persons connected with him==Original
Material
2d. The maid's return is the occasion for rejoicing at home==Original material
11. The Place of Origin of the Ballad
The centre of the areas in which the original features of the ballad have been preserved, most purely, integrally and harmoniously is the region of the Lower Rhine, perhaps in the vicinity of the provinces of Belgium, Holland and North-Eastern France. Particularly important provinces in this connection are Flanders, Brabant, Limburg, Lidge, Nord and Ardennes.
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