is a jewel that any clime might envy. Up to the time of Grundtvig's
edition, in Danmarks gamle Folkeviser, No 82, though four versions had
been printed, the only current copy for a hundred and fifty years had
been Syv's No 88, based on a broadside of the date 1648, but compounded
from several sources; and it was in this form that the ballad became
known to the English through Jamieson's translation. Grundtvig has now
published twenty-seven versions of 'Ribold og Guldborg' (II, 347 ff,
nineteen; 675 ff, four; III, 849 ff, four:[108] of all which only two
are fragments), and nine of 'Hildebrand og Hilde,' No 83, which, is the
same story set in a dramatic frame-work (II, 393 ff, seven; 680 f, one;
III, 857, one, a fragment). Three more Danish versions of 'Ribold og
Guldborg' are furnished by Kristensen, Gamle jydske Folkeviser, I, No
37, II, No 84 #A#, #B# (#C*#, #D*#, #E*#). To these we may add the last
half, sts 15-30, of 'Den farlige Jomfru,' Grundtvig, 184 #G#. Of
Grundtvig's texts, 82 #A# is of the sixteenth century; #B-H# are of the
seventeenth; the remainder and Kristensen's three from recent tradition.
Six versions of 'Hildebrand og Hilde,' #A-F#, are of the seventeenth
century; one is of the eighteenth, #G#; and the remaining two are from
oral tradition of our day.
The first six of Grundtvig's versions of 'Ribold and Guldborg,' #A-F#,
are all from manuscripts, and all of a pure traditional character,
untampered with by "collators." #G# and #H# are mixed texts: they have
#F# for their basis, but have admitted stanzas from other sources. Most
of the versions from recitation are wonderful examples and proofs of the
fidelity with which simple people "report and hold" old tales: for, as
the editor has shown, verses which never had been printed, but which are
found in old manuscripts, are now met with in recited copies; and these
recited copies, again, have verses that occur in no Danish print or
manuscript, but which nevertheless are found in Norwegian and Swedish
recitations, and, what is more striking, in Icelandic tradition of two
hundred years' standing.
The story in the older Danish ballads runs thus. Ribold, a king's son,
sought Guldborg's love in secret. He said he would carry her to a land
where death and sorrow came not; where all the birds were cuckoos, and
all the grass was leeks, and all the streams ran wine. Guldborg, not
indisposed, asked how she should evade the watch kept over her by all
her family and by her betrothed. Ribold disguised her in his cloak and
armor, #B#, #E#, #F#, and rode off, with Guldborg behind him. On the
heath they meet a rich earl [a crafty man, #C#; her betrothed, #D#], who
asks, Whither away, with your stolen maid? [little page, #B#, #F#.]
Ribold replies that it is his youngest sister, whom he has taken from a
cloister, #A#, #E# [sick sister, #C#; brother, #B#, #F#; page, #D#].
This shift avails nothing; no more does a bribe which he offers for
keeping his secret. Report is at once made to her father that Guldborg
has eloped with Ribold. Guldborg perceives that they are pursued, and is
alarmed. Ribold reassures her, and prepares to meet his foes. He bids
Guldborg hold his horse, #B#, #C#, #E#, and, whatever may happen, not to
call him by name: "Though thou see me bleed, name me not to death;
though thou see me fall, name me not at all!" Ribold cuts down six or
seven of her brothers and her father, besides others of her kin; the
youngest brother only is left, and Guldborg in an agony calls upon
Ribold to spare him, to carry tidings to her mother. No sooner was his
name pronounced than Ribold received a mortal wound. He sheathed his
sword, and said, Come, wilt thou ride with me? Wilt thou go home to thy
mother again, or wilt thou follow so sad a swain? And she answered, I
will not go home to my mother again; I will follow thee, my heart's
dearest man. They rode through the wood, and not a word came from the
mouth of either. Guldborg asked, Why art thou not as glad as before? And
Ribold answered, Thy brother's sword has been in my heart. They reached
his house. He called to one to take his horse, to another to bring a
priest, and said his brother should have Guldborg. But she would not
give her faith to two brothers. Ribold died that night, #C#. Three dead
came from Ribold's bower: Ribold and his lief, and his mother, who died
of grief! In #A# Guldborg slays herself, and dies in her lover's arms.
'Hildebrand and Hilde,' #A#, #B#, #C#, #D#, opens with the heroine in a
queen's service, sewing her seam wildly, putting silk for gold and gold
for silk. The queen calls her to account. Hilde begs her mistress to
listen to her tale of sorrow. She was a king's daughter. Twelve knights
had been appointed to be her guard, and one had beguiled her,
Hildebrand, son of the king of England. They went off together, and
were surprised by her brothers [father, #B#, #C#, #D#]. Hildebrand bade
her be of good cheer; but she must not call him by name if she saw him
bleed or fall, #A#, #B#, #D#. A heap of knights soon lay at his feet.
Hilde forgot herself, and called out, Hildebrand, spare my youngest
brother! Hildebrand that instant received a mortal wound, and fell. The
younger brother tied her to his horse, and dragged her home. They shut
her up at first in a strong tower, built for the purpose, #A#,# B#
[Swedish #A#, a dark house], and afterwards sold her into servitude for
a church bell. Her mother's heart broke at the bell's first stroke, and
Hilde, with the last word of her tale, fell dead in the queen's arms.
The most important deviation of the later versions from the old is
exhibited by #S# and #T#, and would probably be observed in #Q#, #R#, as
well, were these complete. #S#, #T# are either a mixture of 'Ribold and
Guldborg' with 'Hildebrand and Hilde,' or forms transitional between the
two. In these Ribold does not live to reach his home, and Guldborg,
unable to return to hers, offers herself to a queen, to spin silk and
weave gold [braid hair and work gold]. But she cannot sew for grief. The
queen smacks her on the cheek for neglecting her needle. Poor Guldborg
utters a protest, but gives no explanation, and the next morning is
found dead. Singularly enough, the name of the hero in #Q#, #R#, #S#,
#T#, is also an intermediate form. Ribold is the name in all the old
Danish copies except #C#, and that has Ride-bolt. Danish #I#, #K#, #X#,
#Z#, all the Icelandic copies, and Swedish #D#, have either Ribold or
some unimportant variation. #Q#, #R#, #S#, have Ride-brand [#T#,
Rederbrand]. All copies of Grundtvig 83, except Danish #G#, Swedish #C#,
which do not give the hero's name, have Hilde-brand; so also 82 #N#,
#O#, #P#, #V#, and Kristensen, I, No 37. The name of the woman is nearly
constant both in 82 and 83.
The paradise promised Guldborg in all the old versions of 82[109]
disappears from the recited copies, except #K#, #M#. It certainly did
not originally belong to 'Ribold and Guldborg,' or to another Danish
ballad in which it occurs ('Den trofaste Jomfru,' Grundtvig, 249 #A#),
but rather to ballads like 'Kvindemorderen,' Grundtvig, 183 #A#, or
'Líti Kersti,' Landstad, 44, where a supernatural being, a demon or a
hillman, seeks to entice away a mortal maid. See No 4, p. 27. In 82 #L#,
#N#, #U#, #V#, #Y#, #Æ#, #Ø#, and Kristensen's copies, the lovers are
not encountered by anybody who reports their flight. Most of the later
versions, #K#, #L#, #M#, #N#, #P#, #U#, #V#, #Y#, #Æ#, #Ø#, and
Kristensen's three, make them halt in a wood, where Ribold goes to sleep
in Guldborg's lap, and is roused by her when she perceives that they are
pursued. So Norwegian #B#, Swedish #A#, #B#, #C#, and 'Hildebrand and
Hilde' #B#. #M#, #Q#, #R#, #S#, #T#, #Z#, have not a specific
prohibition of _dead-naming_, but even these enjoin silence. 83 #C# is
the only ballad in which there is a fight and no prohibition of either
kind, but it is clear from the course of the story that the stanza
containing the usual injunction has simply dropped out. #P# is
distinguished from all other forms of the story by the heroine's killing
herself before her dying lover reaches his house.
The four first copies of 'Hildebrand and Hilde,' as has been seen, have
the story of Ribold and Guldborg with some slight differences and some
abridgment. There is no elopement in #B#: the lovers are surprised in
the princess' bower. When Hilde has finished her tale, in #A#, the queen
declares that Hildebrand was her son. In #B# she interrupts the
narrative by announcing her discovery that Hildebrand was her brother.
#C# and #D# have nothing of the sort. There is no fight in #E-H#. #E#
has taken up the commonplace of the bower on the strand which was forced
by nine men.[110] Hildebrand is again the son of the queen, and, coming
in just as Hilde has expired, exclaims that he will have no other love,
sets his sword against a stone, and runs upon it. #H# has the same
catastrophe. #F# represents the father as simply showing great
indignation and cruelty on finding out that one of the guardian knights
had beguiled his daughter, and presently selling her for a new church
bell. The knight turns out here again to be the queen's son; the queen
says he shall betroth Hille, and Hille faints for joy. #G# agrees with
#B# as to the surprise in the bower. The knight's head is hewn off on
the spot. The queen gives Hilde her youngest son for a husband, and
Hilde avows that she is consoled. #I# agrees with #E# so far as it goes,
but is a short fragment.
There are three #Icelandic# versions of this ballad, 'Ribbalds kvæði,'
Íslenzk Fornkvæði, No 16, all of the seventeenth century. They all come
reasonably close to the Danish as to the story, and particularly #A#.
Ribbald, with no prologue, invites Gullbrún "to ride." He sets her on a
white horse; of all women she rode best. They have gone but a little
way, when they see a pilgrim riding towards them, who hails Ribbald
with, Welcome, with thy stolen maid! Ribbald pretends that the maid is
his sister, but the pilgrim knows very well it is Gullbrún. She offers
her cloak to him not to tell her father, but the pilgrim goes straight
to the king, and says, Thy daughter is off! The king orders his harp to
be brought, for no purpose but to dash it on the floor once and twice,
and break out the strings. He then orders his horse. Gullbrún sees her
father come riding under a hill-side, then her eleven brothers, then
seven brothers-in-law. She begs Ribbald to spare her youngest brother's
life, that he may carry the news to her mother. He replies, I will tie
my horse by the reins; you take up your sewing! then three times forbids
her to name him during the fight. He slew her father first, next the
eleven brothers, then the other seven, all which filled her with
compunction, and she cried out, Ribbald, still thy brand! On the instant
Ribbald received many wounds. He wiped his bloody sword, saying, This is
what you deserve, Gullbrún, but love is your shield; then set her on her
horse, and rode to his brother's door. He called out, Here is a wife for
you! But Gullbrún said, Never will I be given to two brothers. Soon
after Ribbald gave up the ghost. There was more mourning than mirth;
three bodies went to the grave in one coffin, Ribbald, his lady, and his
mother, who died of grief.
#B# and #C# have lost something at the beginning, #C# starting at the
same point as our 'Douglas Tragedy.' The king pursues Ribbald by water.
Gullbrún (#B#) stands in a tower and sees him land. Ribbald gives
Gullbrún to his brother, as in #A#: she lives in sorrow, and dies a
maid.
#Norwegian.# ('Ribold and Guldborg.') #A#, 'Rikeball og stolt Guðbjörg,'
Landstad, 33; #B#, 'Veneros og stolt Ölleber,' Landstad, 34; #C#, #D#,
#E#, #F#, in part described and cited, with six other copies, Grundtvig,
III, p. 853 f. The last half of Landstad No 23, stanzas 17-34, and
stanzas 18-25 of Landstad 28 #B#, also belong here. #A# agrees with the
older Danish versions, even to the extent of the paradise. #B# has been
greatly injured. Upon the lady's warning Veneros of the approach of her
father, he puts her up in an oak-tree for safety. He warns her not to
call him by name, and she says she will rather die first; but her
firmness is not put to the test in this ballad, some verses having
dropped out just at this point. Veneros is advised to surrender, but
dispatches his assailants by eighteen thousands (like Lille brór, in
Landstad, 23), and by way of conclusion hews the false Pál greive, who
had reported his elopement to Ölleber's father, into as many pieces. He
then takes Ölleber on his horse, they ride away and are married. Such
peculiarities in the other copies as are important to us will be noticed
further on.
('Hildebrand and Hilde.') #A#, one of two Norwegian copies communicated
by Professor Bugge to Grundtvig, III, 857 f, agrees well with Danish
#E#, but has the happy conclusion of Danish #F#, #G#, #I#. The heroine
is sold for _nine_ bells. #B#, the other, omits the bower-breaking of
#A# and Danish #E#, and ends with marriage.
The #Swedish# forms of 'Ribold and Guldborg' are: #A#, 'Hillebrand,'
Afzelius, No 2; #B#, 'Herr Redebold,' and #C#, 'Kung Vallemo,'
Afzelius, No 80; new ed., No 2, 1, 2, 3; #D#, 'Ribbolt,' Arwidsson, No
78; #E#, 'Herr Redebold' #F#, 'Herting Liljebrand,' and #G#, 'Herr
Balder,' in Cavallius and Stephens' manuscript collection; #H#, 'Kung
Walmon,' E. Wigström's Folkdiktning, No 15, p. 33. #A#, #B#, #C#, #H#,
are not markedly different from the ordinary Danish ballad, and this is
true also, says Grundtvig, of the unprinted versions, #E#, #F#, #G#. #D#
and #G# are of the seventeenth century, the others from recent
tradition. Ribold is pictured in #D# as a bold prince, equally versed in
runes and arts as in manly exercises. He visits Giötha by night: they
slumber sweet, but wake in blood. She binds up his wounds with rich
kerchiefs. He rides home to his father's, and sits down on a bench. The
king bids his servants see what is the matter, and adds, Be he sick or
be he hurt, he got it at Giötha-Lilla's. They report the prince stabbed
with sharp pikes within, and bound with silk kerchiefs without. Ribold
bids them bury him in the mould, and not blame Giötha-Lilla; "for my
horse was fleet, and I was late, and he hurtled me 'gainst an
apple-tree" (so Hillebrand in #A#). #E# represents the heroine as
surviving her lover, and united to a young king, but always grieving for
Redebold.
'Hildebrand and Hilde' exists in Swedish in three versions: #A#, a
broadside of the last part of the seventeenth century, now printed in
the new edition of Afzelius, p. 142 ff of the notes (the last nine
stanzas before, in Danske Viser, III, 438 f); #B#, Afzelius, No 32, new
ed. No 26, #C#, Arwidsson, No 107, both taken down in this century. In
#A# and #B# Hillebrand, son of the king of England, carries off Hilla;
they halt in a grove; she wakes him from his sleep when she hears her
father and seven brothers coming; he enjoins her not to call him by
name, which still she does upon her father's being slain [or when only
her youngest brother is left], and Hillebrand thereupon receives mortal
wounds. He wipes his sword, saying, This is what you would deserve, were
you not Hilla. The youngest brother ties Hilla to his horse, drags her
home, and confines her in a dark house, which swarms with snakes and
dragons (#A# only). They sell her for a new church bell, and her
mother's heart breaks at the first sound. Hilla falls dead at the
queen's knee. #C# has lost the dead-naming, and ends with the queen's
promising to be Hilla's best friend.
A detailed comparison of the English ballads, and especially of 'Earl
Brand,' with the Scandinavian (such as Grundtvig has made, III, 855 f)
shows an unusual and very interesting agreement. The name Earl Brand, to
begin with, is in all probability a modification of the Hildebrand found
in Danish 82 #N#, #O#, #P#, #V#, #C*#, in all versions of Danish 83, and
in the corresponding Swedish #A#. Ell, too, in Percy's fragment, which
may have been Ellë earlier, points to Hilde, or something like it, and
Erl-inton might easily be corrupted from such a form as the Alibrand of
Norwegian #B# (Grundtvig, III, 858). Hildebrand is the son of the king
of England in Danish 83 #A-E#, and the lady in 'Earl Brand' is the same
king's daughter, an interchange such as is constantly occurring in
tradition. Stanza 2 can hardly be the rightful property of 'Earl Brand.'
Something very similar is met with in 'Leesome Brand,' and is not much
in place there. For 'old Carl Hood,' of whom more presently, Danish 82
#X# and Norwegian #A#, #C# have an old man, Danish #C# a crafty man, #T#
a false younker, and Norwegian #B# and three others "false Pál greive."
The lady's urging Earl Brand to slay the old carl, and the answer, that
it would be sair to kill a gray-haired man, sts 8, 9, are almost
literally repeated in Norwegian #A#, Landstad, No 33. The knight does
slay the old man in Danish #X# and Norwegian #C#, and slays the court
page in Danish #Z#, and false Pál greive in Norwegian #B#,--in this last
_after_ the battle. The question, "Where have ye stolen this lady away?"
in st. 11, occurs in Danish 82 #A#, #D#, #E#, #K#, #P#, #R#, #S#, #T#,
#Z#, in Norwegian #B# and Icelandic #B#, and something very similar in
many other copies. The reply, "She is my sick sister, whom I have
brought from Winchester" [nunnery], is found almost literally in Danish
#C#, #X#, #Z#: "It is my sick sister; I took her yesterday from the
cloister." [Danish #E#, it is my youngest sister from the cloister; she
is sick: Danish #A#, youngest sister from cloister: Danish #R# and
Norwegian #B#, sister from cloister: Danish #S#, #T#, sister's daughter
from cloister: Norwegian #F#, sister from Holstein: Danish #P#,
Icelandic #A#, Norwegian #A#, sister.] The old man, crafty man, rich
earl, in the Scandinavian ballads, commonly answers that he knows
Guldborg very well; but in Danish #D#, where Ribold says it is a court
page he has hired, we have something like sts 14, 15: "Why has he such
silk-braided hair?" On finding themselves discovered, the lovers, in the
Scandinavian ballad, attempt to purchase silence with a bribe: Danish
#A-I#, #M#, Icelandic and Norwegian #A#, #B#. This is not expressly done
in 'Earl Brand,' but the same seems to be meant in st. 10 by "I'll gie
him a pound." St. 17 is fairly paralleled by Danish #S#, 18, 19: "Where
is Guldborg, thy daughter? Walking in the garden, gathering roses;" and
st. 18, by Norwegian #B#, 15: "You may search without and search within,
and see whether Ölleber you can find." The announcement in st. 19 is
made in almost all the Scandinavian ballads, in words equivalent to
"Ribold is off with thy daughter," and then follows the arming for the
pursuit. The lady looks over her shoulder and sees her father coming, as
in st. 21, in Danish 82 #A#, #F#, #H#, #I#, #Q#, #R#, #T#, #X#, #Z#, and
Norwegian #A#.
The scene of the fight is better preserved in the Scottish ballads than
in 'Earl Brand,' though none of these have the cardinal incident of the
death-naming. All the Scottish versions, #B-F#, and also 'Erlinton,'
#A#, #B#, make the lady hold the knight's horse: so Danish 82 #B#, #C#,
#E#, #I#, #Æ#, #D*#, Icelandic #C#, Norwegian and Swedish #A#, and
Danish 83 #D#. Of the knight's injunction, "Name me not to death, though
thou see me bleed," which, as has been noted, is kept by nearly every
Danish ballad (and by the Icelandic, the Norwegian, and by Swedish
'Ribold and Guldborg,' #A#, #B#, #C#, #H#, Swedish 'Hildebrand and
Hilde,' #A#, #B#), there is left in English only this faint trace, in
'Erlinton,' #A#, #B#: "See ye dinna change your cheer until ye see my
body bleed." It is the wish to save the life of her youngest brother
that causes the lady to call her lover by name in the larger number of
Scandinavian ballads, and she adds, "that he may carry the tidings to my
mother," in Danish 82 #A#, #B#, #C#, #E#, #F#, #G#, #H#, #M#, #X#, 83
#B#, #C#, #D#. Grief for her father's death is the impulse in Danish 82
#I#, #N#, #O#, #Q#, #R#, #S#, #Y#, #Z#, #Æ#, #Ø#, #A*#, #C*#, #D*#,
#E*#, Swedish #A#, #B#, #C#, #H#. English #A# says nothing of father or
brother; but in #B#, #C#, #D#, #E#, it is the father's death that causes
the exclamation. All the assailants are slain in 'Erlinton' #A#, #B#,
except an aged knight [the auldest man], and he is spared to carry the
tidings home. 'Erlinton' #C#, however, agrees with the oldest Danish
copies in making the youngest brother the motive of the lady's
intervention. It is the fifteenth, and last, of the assailants that
gives Earl Brand his death-wound; in Danish #H#, the youngest brother,
whom he has been entreated to spare; and so, apparently, in Danish #C#
and Norwegian #A#.
The question, "Will you go with me or return to your mother?" which we
find in English #B#, #C#, #D#, is met with also in many Danish versions,
82 #B#, #H#, #K#, #L#, #M#, #N#, #P#, #U#, #Z#, #Æ#, #Ø#, #C*#, and
Swedish #A#, #B#, #C#. The dying man asks to have his bed made in
English #B#, #C#, as in Danish 82 #B#, #C#, #K#, #L#, #N#, #U#, #N#,
#Æ#, #Ø#, #C*#, #D*#, Norwegian #A#, Swedish #A#, #B#, #C#, #H#, and
desires that the lady may marry his brother in English #A#, as in nearly
all the Danish versions, Icelandic #A#, #B#, #C#, Norwegian #C#, #D#,
#E#, Swedish #C#. He declares her a maiden true in 'Earl Brand,' #A c#
33, and affirms the same with more particularity in Danish 82 #B#, #C#,
#E#, #F#, #G#, #M#, #Ø#, Icelandic #B#, #C#, Norwegian #A#, #C#, #E#,
Swedish #C#. The growth of the rose and brier [bush and brier] from the
lovers' grave in English #B#, #C#, is not met with in any version of
'Ribold and Guldborg' proper, but 'Den farlige Jomfru' #G#, Grundtvig,
184, the last half of which, as already remarked, is a fragment of a
Ribold ballad, has a linden in place of the rose and brier.
No complete ballad of the Ribold class is known to have survived in
#German#, but a few verses have been interpolated by tradition in the
earliest copy of the Ulinger ballad (vv. 47-56), which may almost with
certainty be assigned to one of the other description. They disturb the
narrative where they are, and a ready occasion for their slipping in was
afforded by the scene being exactly the same in both ballads: a knight
and a lady, with whom he had eloped, resting in a wood.[111] See No 4,
p. 32 of this volume.
We find in a pretty #Neapolitan-Albanian# ballad, which, with others, is
regarded by the editors as a fragment of a connected poem, several of
the features of these northern ones. A youth asks a damsel in marriage,
but is not favored by her mother, father, or brother. He wins over first
the mother and then the father by handsome presents, but his gifts,
though accepted, do not conciliate the brother. He carries off the lady
on horseback, and is attacked by the brother, four uncles, and seven
cousins. He is killed and falls from his horse; with him the lady falls
dead also, and both are covered up with stones. In the spring the youth
comes up a cypress, the damsel comes up a vine, and encloses the cypress
in her arms. (Rapsodie d'un poema albanese raccolte nelle colonie del
Napoletano, de Rada and de' Coronei, Florence, 1866, lib. ii., canto
viii.)
These ballads would seem to belong among the numerous ramifications of
the Hilde saga. Of these, the second lay of Helgi Hundingslayer, in
Sæmund's Edda, and 'Waltharius,' the beautiful poem of Ekkehard, are
most like the ballads.[112] Leaving 'Waltharius' till we come to
'Erlinton,' we may notice that Sigrún, in the Helgi lay, though promised
by her father to another man, Hödbrodd, son of Granmar, preferred Helgi.
She sought him out, and told him frankly her predicament: she feared,
she said, the wrath of her friends, for breaking her father's promise.
Helgi accepted her affection, and bade her not care for the displeasure
of her relatives. A great battle ensued between Helgi and the sons of
Granmar, who were aided by Sigrún's father and brothers. All her kinsmen
were slain except one brother, Dag. He bound himself to peace with
Helgi, but, notwithstanding, made sacrifices to Odin to obtain the loan
of his spear, and with it slew Helgi. We have, therefore, in so much of
the lay of Helgi Hundingslayer, the groundwork of the story of the
ballads: a woman, who, as in many of the Ribold ballads, has been
betrothed to a man she does not care for, gives herself to another;
there is a fight, in which a great number of her kinsmen fall; one
brother survives, who is the death of the man she loves. The lay of
Helgi Hiörvard's son, whose story has much in common with that of his
namesake, affords two resemblances of detail not found in the lay of the
Hundingslayer. Helgi Hiörvard's son, while his life-blood is ebbing,
expresses himself in almost the words of the dying Ribold: "The sword
has come very near my heart." He then, like Ribold and Earl Brand,
declares his wish that his wife should marry his brother, and she, like
Guldborg, declines a second union.[113]