21, 2. he's courted.
23. Till once he got.
Between 2 and 3 is inserted:
31 She's gane down to her father's stable,
3 And she's taken the best, and she's left the warst.
3 father's gates
4 and safely I'll set you down.
123. father's gates.
4. At the breaking of the day.
134. yestreen.
Between 13 and 14 is inserted:
D a.
21. Colin.
b.
Buchan's copy makes many slight changes which are not noticed here.
12. west countrie.
After 1 is inserted:
After 2:
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:
134. Before her.
144. to toss.
183. her steed.
233. What hast thou made o fause.
283. Charlestown sands. Sharps thinks Carline Sands means Carlinseugh Sands on the coast of Forfarshire.
After 30:
c.
Motherwell's one stanza is:
E.
32. of the.
172. But so.
[24] 'The Elfin Knight' begins very much like A, but perhaps has borrowed its opening stanzas from this ballad. See page 13.
[25] The second stanza, which describes the harping, occurs again in 'Glenkindie' (st. 6).
[26] 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.
[27] "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."
[28] 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.
[29] 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).
[30] "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 a 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'être com blées. Il est bon d'insister sur la remarque faite à la suite de la chanson, qu'à 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.
[31] So in 'Liebe ohne Stand,' one of the mixed forms of the German ballad, Wunderhorn, Erk I, 41, Crecelius, I, 36,
[32] 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.
[33] So the princess in Asbjörnsen og Moe, N. Folkeeventyr, p. 153. Cf. Campbell's Tales of the West Highlands, III, 209; IV, 282, 283.
[34] 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.'
[35] All the German versions appear to have been originally in the two-line stanza.
[36] 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.
[37] Both D and E have attached to them this final stanza:
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.
[38] 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.
[39] 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.
[40] This stroke of realism fails only in M, N, R, of this second class.
[41] Apparently to a Ribold ballad, of which no other trace has been found in German. See further on in this volume.
The liebkosung of this murder-reeking Adelger, o'ersized with coagulate gore, is admirably horrible.
[43] Nimmersatt (All-begehrend) as interpreted by Meinert, not Adelger.
[44] 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.
[45] 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.
[46] 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.
[47] K, or the editor, seeks to avoid the difficulty by taking the last line from the knight, and reading, "Mit Blut war er umronnen," an emendation not according with the simplicity of ballads. Another Swabian copy, Meier, p. 301, note, strophe 6, has:
[48] The last verses are these, and not very much worse than the rest:
[49] 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.
[50] What will those who are so troubled about cork-heeled shoon in 'Sir Patrick Spens' say to the fire-arms in L, N, S?
[51] A variety of W, cited in Schlesische Volkslieder, p. 26, has,
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 Ritters Uleraich" in Y (Meinert), would equally well yield Hanslein. Might not Halsemann possibly be an equivalent of Halsherr?
[52] And in 'Der Mutter Fluch,' Meinert, p. 246, a ballad with which Y agrees in the first two and last four stanzas.
[53] There is a dove in Z, but Z, as has been said, presents traits of all three classes.
Nicolai, vv 35, 36,
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.
[55] '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.)
[56] The remarkable Norwegian ballad of the 'Wassermanns Brant' 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,
and Norwegian F, stanza 9, cited by Grundtvig, IV, 4,
[57] 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.
[58] 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.
[59] 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.
[60] One version of 'The Two Sisters,' Q, has the same answer:
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 P; 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.
[61] 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.
[62] N 1, "A lord came riding from his estate to a neighbor."
[63] The place is high above the water in R 10, 11, as in English D 9, 29, C 4.
[64] 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.
[65] 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.
[66] 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.
[68] 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 complètes, V, 132.
[69] So far there is agreement in 'La Fille du Prince,' Paymaigre, No 32, p. 106; Poésies pop. de la France, MS., III, fol. 133.
[70] 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.
[71] 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.
[72] 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.
[73] 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.
[74] 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.
[75] 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.
[76] 'Child Waters,' 'The Fair Flower of Northumberland.'
[77] 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.
[78] 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.
[79] The saga in Björner's Nordiska Kämpadater, c. 5-7.
[80] Danish E, I, L, and even A, make the knight suggest to the lady that she should get her gold together while he is saddling his horse; but this is a commonplace found in other cases of elopement, and by itself warrants no conclusion as to the knight's rapacity. See 'Samson,' Grundtvig, No 6, C 5; 'Ribold og Guldborg,' No 82, C 13, E 14, etc.; 'Redselille og Medelvold,' No 271, A 21, B 20; 272, Bilag 3, st. 8; 270, 18, etc.
[81] So perhaps a Polish ballad in Wojcicki, I, 38, akin to the other John and Katie ballads.
[82] 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.
[83] Det philologisk-historiske Samfunds Mindeskrift i Anledning af dets femogtyveaarige Virksomhed, 1854-79, Bidrag til den nordiske Balladedigtnings Historie, p. 75 ff.
[84] 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.
[85] 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.
[86] 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.
[87] It should be observed that these words are from the dove's warning.
[88] 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?
[89] 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.
[90] 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, III, 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, Færøiske 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.
[91] 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.
[92] 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.'
[93] Dutch B, which, as before said, has been completely rewritten, makes the comparison with Holofernes: