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.