Chapter V: Part 5

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,[53] 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 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 Bökendorf. 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.[54]

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.'[55] (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,' co[llecte]d by [Ho]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.[56]

'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*#, Kozłowski, 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, #l#: #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.[57]

The story of the larger part of these ballads, conveyed as briefly as possible, is this: John, who is watering horses, urges Catherine,[58] 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.[59] 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,"[60] #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#, #I#], "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.[61] 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 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#[62]) 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#, #E#, 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 yourself into the river, or go home to your mother? So #H#, and #R# nearly.[63] 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.[64]

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 I, 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 Hołdrak comes up to them. Then follows the dialogue about the bloody sword and the dove. When asked where he has left Hiłžička, 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.[65] 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 calling 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.[66]

#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, 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."[67] "Reach me your hand; I will marry you Sunday."

"Marry, marry a fish, Renauld,
The fourteen women down below."

#B.# 'De Dion et de la Fille du Roi,' from Auvergne, Ampère, Instructions, etc., 40 vv, p. 40, stanzas 15-24, the first fourteen constituting another ballad.[68] 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' Jeanneton,' 32 vv, from Poitou and Aunís, 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, MS., 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 Bohème 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 lost 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.[69] 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, MS., III, fol. 59, No 4; 'L'Épée Libératrice,' V. Smith, Chansons du Velay, etc., Romania, VII, 69, nearly; also 'Il Corsaro,' Nigra, Rivista Coutemporanea, 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 began to weep. From this point Portuguese #A#, and #B# so far as it is preserved, agree very nearly with the Spanish.[70]

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, MS., 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.[71]--#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,[72] 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.[73] 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 Ännchen 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 elsewhere witnessed in preternatural beings, whose wits are frequently represented as no 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, whereas 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, Unger, c. 222, p. 206.[74]

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.[75] 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,[76] 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.