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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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