been published. #A#, 'Herr Lagman och Herr Thor,' from a manuscript of
the end of the sixteenth century, Arwidsson, I, 165, No 24; #B#, from a
manuscript, _ib._, p. 168; #C#, from oral tradition, p. 171; #D#,
'Lageman och hans Brud,' Eva Wigström, Folkdiktning samlad och
upptecknad i Skåne, p. 29, No 12; #E#, 'Stolt Ingrid,' Folkvisor fråu
Skåne, upptecknade af E. Wigström, in Hazelius, Ur de nordiska Folkens
Lif, p. 121, No 3; #F#, 'Deielill och Lageman,' Fagerlund, Anteckningar
om Korpo och Houtskärs Socknar, p. 192, No 3. In #A#, #D# the bride goes
off in her lover's ship; in #C# he carries her off on his horse, when
the dancing is at its best, and subsequently, upon the king's
requisition, settles matters with his rival by killing him in single
fight. The stolid bridegroom, in the others, consents to a peaceable
arrangement.
Certain points in the story of Horn--the long absence, the sudden
return, the appearance under disguise at the wedding feast, and the
dropping of the ring into a cup of wine obtained from the bride--repeat
themselves in a great number of romantic tales. More commonly it is a
husband who leaves his wife for seven years, is miraculously informed on
the last day that she is to be remarried on the morrow, and is restored
to his home in the nick of time, also by superhuman means. Horn is
warned to go back, in the ballads and in Horn Child, by the
discoloration of his ring, but gets home as he can; this part of the
story is slurred over in a way that indicates a purpose to avoid a
supernatural expedient.
Very prominent among the stories referred to is that of Henry of
Brunswick [Henry the Lion, Reinfrid of Brunswick], and this may well be
put first, because it is preserved in Scandinavian popular ballads.[165]
(1.) The latest of these, a Swedish ballad, from a collection made at
the end of the last century, 'Hertig Henrik,' Arwidsson, No 168, II,
422, represents Duke Henry as telling his wife that he is minded to go
off for seven years (he says not whither, but it is of course to the
East); should he stay eight or nine, she may marry the man she fancies.
He cuts a ring in two; gives her one half and keeps the other. He is
made captive, and serves a heathen lord and lady seven years, drawing
half the plough, "like another horse." His liberation is not accounted
for, but he was probably set free by his mistress, as in the ballad
which follows. He gets possession of an excellent sword, and uses it on
an elephant who is fighting with a lion. The grateful lion transports
the duke to his own country while he is asleep. A herdsman, of whom he
asks food, recommends him to go to the Brunswick mansion, where there is
a wedding, and Duke Henry's former spouse is the bride. When Henry comes
to the house, his daughter is standing without; he asks food for a poor
pilgrim. She replies that she has never heard of a pilgrim taking a lion
about with him. But they give him drink, and the bride, _pro more_,
drinks out of the same bowl, and finds the half ring in the bottom. The
bride feels in her pocket and finds her half,[166] and the two, when
thrown upon a table, run together and make one ring.
(2.) The Danish ballad[167] (Grundtvig, No 114, #B#, from a 17th century
manuscript), relates that Duke Henry, in consequence of a dream, took
leave of his wife, enjoining her to wait to the eighth year, and, if
then he did not return, marry whom she liked. In the course of his
fights with the heathen, Henry was made captive, and had to draw the
harrow and plough, like a beast. One day (during his lord's absence, as
we learn from #A#) the heathen lady whom he served set him free. He had
many adventures, and in one of them killed a panther who was pressing a
lion hard, for which service the lion followed him like a dog. The duke
then happened upon a hermit, who told him that his wife was to be
married the next day, but he was to go to sleep, and not be concerned.
He laid his head on a stone in the heathen land, and woke in a trice to
hear German speech from a herdsman's mouth. The herdsman confirmed what
the hermit had said: the duchess was to be married on the morrow. The
duke went to the kitchen as a pilgrim, and sent word to the lady that he
wished to drink to her. The duchess, surprised at this freedom, summoned
him into her presence. The verses are lost in which the cup should be
given the pilgrim and returned to the lady. When she drank off the wine
that was left, a half ring lay in the glass.
Danish #A#, though of the 16th century, does not mention the ring.
(3.) A Flemish broadside, which may originally have been of the 15th
century, relates the adventures of the Duke of Brunswick in sixty-five
stanzas of four long lines: reprinted in von der Hagen's Germania, VIII,
359, and Hoffmann's Niederländische Volkslieder, No 2, p. 6;
Coussemaker, No 47, p. 152; abridged and made over, in Willems, O. v.
L., p. 251, No 107. The duke, going to war, tells his wife to marry
again if he stays away seven years. She gives him half of her ring.
Seven years pass, and the duke, being then in desperate plight in a
wilderness, is taken off by a ship; by providential direction, no doubt,
though at first it does not so appear. For the fiend is aboard, who
tells him that his wife is to be married to-morrow, and offers, for his
soul, to carry him to his palace in his sleep before day. The duke,
relying on heaven and his lion, professes to accept the terms: he is to
be taken to his palace _in his sleep_. The lion rouses his master at the
right time, and the fiend is baffled. The duke goes to the marriage
feast, and sends a message to the bride that he desires a drink from her
in memory of her lord. They take him for a beggar, but the lady orders
him wine in a gold cup. The cup goes back to her with the duke's half
ring in it. She cries, "It is my husband!" joins her half to the one in
the cup, and the two adhere firmly.
(4.) A German poem of the 15th century, by Michel Wyssenhere, in
ninety-eight stanzas of seven lines, first printed by Massmann,
Denkmæler deutscher Sprache und Literatur, p. 122, and afterwards by
Erlach, II, 290, and elsewhere. The Lord of Brunswick receives an
impression in a dream that he ought to go to the Holy Sepulchre. He cuts
a ring in two, and gives his wife one half for a souvenir, but fixes no
time for his absence, and so naturally says nothing about her taking
another husband. He has the adventures which are usual in other versions
of the story, and at last finds himself among the Wild Hunt (das wöden
her), and obliges one of the company, by conjurations, to tell him how
it is with his wife and children. The spirit informs him that his wife
is about to marry another man. He then constrains the spirit to
transport him and his lion to his castle. This is done on the same terms
as in the Flemish poem, and the lion wakes his master. His wife offers
him drink; he lets his half ring drop in the glass, and, upon the glass
being returned to the lady, she takes out the token, finds it like her
half, and cries out that she has recovered her dear husband and lord.
(5.) Henry the Lion, a chap-book printed in the 16th century, in one
hundred and four stanzas of eight short verses; reprinted in Büsching's
Volkssagen, Märchen und Legenden, p. 213 ff, and (modernized) by
Simrock in the first volume of Die deutschen Volksbücher. The hero goes
out simply in quest of adventures, and, having lost his ship and all his
companions, is floating on a raft with his lion, when the devil comes to
him and tells him that his wife is to remarry. A compact is made, and
the devil balked, as before. Though we were not so informed at the
beginning, it now turns out that the duke had given a half ring to the
duchess seven years before, and had bidden her take a second husband if
he did not come back in that time. The duke sends a servant to beg a
drink of wine of his wife, and returns the cup, as in (3), (4).
(6.) A ballad in nine seven-line stanzas, supposed to be by a
Meistersinger, preserved in broadsides of about 1550 and 1603, Böhme, No
5, p. 30, Erk's Wunderhorn, IV, 111. (7.) Hans Sachs's 'Historia,' 1562,
in two hundred and four verses, Works, ed. 1578, Buch iv, Theil ii,
Blatt lvii^b-lviii^b.[168] (8.) A Meistersingerlied of the end of the
16th century, in three twenty-line stanzas, printed in Idunna u. Hermode
for March 27, 1813 (appended to p. 64), and after this, with changes, in
Kretzschmer, II, 17, No 5.--These three agree with the foregoing as to
the ring.
(9.) Reinfrid von Braunschweig, c. 1300, ed. Bartsch, 1871. Reinfrid is
promised by the Virgin, who appears to him thrice in vision, that he
shall have issue if he will go over sea to fight the heathen. He breaks
a ring which his wife had given him, and gives her one half, vv.
14,906-11. If he dies, she is to marry, for public reasons, vv.
14,398-407; but she is not to believe a report of his death unless she
receives his half of the ring back, vv. 14,782-816, 15,040-049. The
latter part of the romance not being extant, we do not know the
conclusion, but a variation as to the use made of the ring is
probable.[169]
The story of Reinfrit is also preserved in a Bohemian prose chap-book
printed before 1565. This prose is clearly a poem broken up, and it is
believed that the original should be placed in the first half of the
14th century, or possibly at the end of the 13th. The hero returns, in
pilgrim's garb, after seven years' absence, to find his wife about to be
handed over by her father to another prince. He lets his ring fall into
a cup, and goes away; his wife recognizes the ring, and is reunited to
him. The story has passed from the Bohemian into Russian and Magyar.
Feifalik, Sitzungsberichte der phil.-hist. Classe der Wiener Akademie,
XXIX, 83 ff, the ring at p. 92; XXXII, 322 ff.
Similar use is made of the ring in other German romances. (1.) 'Der edle
Moringer' (MS. of 14th century) asks his wife to wait seven years for
him, while he visits the land of St Thomas. He is warned by an angel, at
the expiration of that period, that he will lose her if he does not go
back, bewails himself to his patron, and is conveyed home in a sleep. He
begs an alms at his castle-gate in the name of God, St Thomas, and the
noble Moringer; is admitted to his wife's presence; sings a lay
describing his own case, which moves the lady much; throws into a beaker
of wine, which she sets before him, the ring by which she was married to
him, sends the cup back to her, and is recognized. Böhme, No 6, p. 32;
Uhland, No 298, p. 773. (2.) In the older Hildebrandslied, which is of
the 14th century, or earlier, the hero, returning after an absence of
thirty-two years, drops his ring into a cup of wine presented to him by
his wife. Böhme, No 1, p. 1; Uhland, No 132, p. 330. (3.) Wolfdietrich
drops Ortnit's ring into a cup of wine sent him by Liebgart, who has
been adjudged to the Graf von Biterne in consideration of his having, as
he pretended, slain the dragon. The cup is returned to the empress, the
ring identified, the pretension refuted, and Liebgart given to Ortnit's
avenger. Wolfdietrich B, ed. Jänicke, I, 280 ff, stanzas 767-785. (4.)
King Rother (whose history has passages of the strongest resemblance to
Horn's), coming to retrieve his wife, who has been kidnapped and carried
back to her father, lands below Constantinople, at a woody and hilly
place, and assumes a pilgrim's disguise. On his way to the city he meets
a man who tells him that Ymelot of Babylon has invaded Greece, and taken
Constantin, his wife's father, prisoner; and that Constantin, to save
his life, has consented to give his daughter to the heathen king's son.
Rother steals into the hall, and even under the table at which the royal
party are sitting, and contrives to slip his ring into the hand of his
distressed young queen, who, thus assured of his presence, immediately
recovers her spirits. Massmann, Deutsche Gedichte des zwœlften
Jahrhunderts, Theil ii, p. 213, vv. 3687-3878.
One of the best and oldest stories of the kind we are engaged with is
transmitted by Cæsarius of Heisterbach in his Dialogus Miraculorum, of
the first quarter of the 13th century. Gerard, a soldier living in
Holenbach ("his grandchildren are still alive, and there is hardly a man
in the town who does not know about this"), being, like Moringer,
devoted to St Thomas of India, was impelled to visit his shrine. He
broke a ring and gave one half to his wife, saying, Expect me back in
five years, and marry whom you wish if I do not come then. The journey,
which would be long enough any way, was providentially protracted. He
reached the shrine at last, and said his prayers, and then remembered
that that was the last day of his fifth year. Alas, my wife will marry
again, he thought; and quite right he was, for the wedding was even then
preparing. A devil, acting under the orders of St Thomas, set Gerard
down at his own door. He found his wife supping with her second partner,
and dropped his half ring into her cup. She took it out, fitted it to
the half which had been given her, rushed into his arms, and bade
good-by to the new bridegroom. Ed. Strange, II, 131.
A tradition closely resembling this has been found in Switzerland,
Gerard and St Thomas being exchanged for Wernhart von Strättlingen and
St Michael. Menzel's Odin, p. 96.
Another of the most remarkable tales of this class is exquisitely told
by Boccaccio in the Decamerone, G. x, N. ix. Messer Torello, going to
the crusade, begs his wife to wait a year, a month, and a day before she
marries again. The lady assures him that she will never be another man's
wife; but he replies that a woman young, beautiful, and of high family,
as she is, will not be allowed to have her way. With her parting embrace
she gives him a ring from her finger, saying, If I die before I see you
again, remember me when you look on this. The Christians were wasted by
an excessive mortality, and those who escaped the ravages of disease
fell into the hands of Saladin, and were imprisoned by him in various
cities, Torello in Alexandria. Here he was recognized by Saladin, whom
he had entertained with the most delicate and splendid hospitality a few
months before, when the soldan was travelling through Italy in disguise.
Saladin's return for this courtesy was so magnificent as almost to put
Lombardy out of Torello's head,[170] and besides he trusted that his
wife had been informed of his safety by a letter which he had sent. This
was not so, however, and the death of another Torello was reported in
Italy as his, in consequence of which his supposed widow was solicited
in marriage, and was obliged to consent to take another husband after
the time should have expired which she had promised to wait. A week
before the last day, Torello learned that the ship which carried his
letter had been wrecked, and the thought that his wife would now marry
again drove him almost mad. Saladin extracted from him the cause of his
distress, and promised that he should yet be at home before the time was
out, which Torello, who had heard that such things had often been done,
was ready to believe. And in fact, by means of one of his necromancers,
Saladin caused Torello to be transported to Pavia in one night--the
night before the new nuptials. Torello appeared at the banquet the next
day in the guise of a Saracen, under the escort of an uncle of his, a
churchman, and at the right moment sent word to the lady that it was a
custom in his country for a bride to send her cup filled with wine to
any stranger who might be present, and for him to drink half and cover
the cup, and for her to drink the rest. To this the lady graciously
assented. Torello drank out most of the wine, dropped in the ring which
his wife had given him when they parted, and covered the cup. The lady,
upon lifting the cover, saw the ring, knew her husband, and, upsetting
the table in her ecstasy, threw herself into Torello's arms.
Tales of this description still maintain themselves in popular
tradition. 'Der Ring ehelicher Treue,' Gottschalk, Deutsche
Volksmärchen, II, 135, relates how Kuno von Falkenstein, going on a
crusade, breaks his ring and gives one half to his wife, begging her to
wait seven years before she marries again. He has the adventures of
Henry of Brunswick, with differences, and, like Moringer, sings a lay
describing his own case. The new bridegroom hands him a cup; he drops in
his half ring, and passes the cup to the bride. The two halves join of
themselves.[171] Other examples, not without variations and
deficiencies, in details, are afforded by 'Der getheilte Trauring,'
Schmitz, Sagen u. Legenden des Eifler Volkes, p. 82; 'Bodman,' Uhland,
in Pfeiffer's Germania, IV, 73-76; 'Graf Hubert von Kalw,' Meier,
Deutsche Sagen, u.s.w., aus Schwaben, p. 332, No 369, Grimms, Deutsche
Sagen, No 524; 'Der Bärenhäuter,' Grimms, K.u.H. märchen, No 101;
'Berthold von Neuhaus,' in Kern's Schlesische Sagen-Chronik, p. 93.
A story of the same kind is interwoven with an exceedingly impressive
adventure related of Richard Sans-Peur in Les Chroniques de Normandie,
Rouen, 1487, chap. lvii, cited in Michel, Chronique des Ducs de
Normandie par Benoit, II, 336 ff. A second is told of Guillaume Martel,
seigneur de Bacqueville; still others of a seigneur Gilbert de Lomblon,
a comrade of St. Louis in his first crusade. Amélie de Bosquet, La
Normandie romanesque et merveilleuse, pp. 465-68, 470.
A Picard ballad, existing in two versions, partly cited by Rathery in
the Moniteur Universel for August 26, 1853, tells of a Sire de Créqui,
who, going beyond seas with, his sovereign, breaks his ring and gives
half to his young wife; is gone ten years, and made captive by the
Turks, who condemn him to death on account of his adhesion to Christ;
and is transported to his château on the eve of the day of his doom.
This very day his wife is to take another husband, sorely against her
will. Créqui appears in the rags of a beggar, and legitimates himself by
producing his half of the ring (which, in a way not explained by
Rathery, has been brought back by a swan).
'Le Retour du Mari,' Puymaigre, Chants populaires messins, p. 20, has
also some traits of ballads of this class. A bridegroom has to go on a
campaign the very day of his nuptials. The campaign lasts seven years,
and the day of his return his wife is about to remarry. He is invited to
the wedding supper, and towards the close of it proposes to play cards
to see who shall have the bride. The guests are surprised. The soldier
says he will have the bride without winning her at cards or dice, and,
turning to the lady, asks, Where are the rings I gave you at your
wedding seven years ago? She will go for them; and here the story breaks
off.[172]
The same hard fortune is that of Costantino, a young Albanian, who is
called to the service of his king three days after his marriage. He
gives back her ring to his wife, and tells her he must go to the wars
for nine years. Should he not return in nine years and nine days, he
bids her marry. The young wife says nothing, waits her nine years and
nine days, and then, since she is much sought for, her father wishes her
to marry. She says nothing, again, and they prepare for the bridal.
Costantino, sleeping in the king's palace, has a bad dream, which makes
him heave a sigh that comes to his sovereign's ear. The king summons all
his soldiers, and inquires who heaved that sigh. Costantino confesses it
was he, and says it was because his wife was marrying. The king orders
him to take the swiftest horse and make for his home. Costantino meets
his father, and learns that his dream is true, presses on to the church,
arrives at the door at the same time as the bridal procession, and
offers himself for a bride's-man. When they come to the exchange of
rings, Costantino contrives that his ring shall remain on the bride's
finger. She knows the ring; her tears burst forth. Costantino declares
himself as having been already crowned with the lady.[173] Camarda,
Appendice al Saggio di Grammatologia, etc., 90-97, a Calabrian-Albanese
copy. There is a Sicilian, but incomplete, in Vigo, Canti popolari
siciliani, p. 342 ff, ed. 1857, p. 695 ff, ed. 1870-74.
With this belongs a ballad, very common in Greece, which, however, has
for the most part lost even more of what was in all probability the
original catastrophe. 'Αναγνωρισμος,' Chasiotis, Popular Songs of
Epirus, p. 88, No 27, comes nearer the common story than other
versions.[174] A man who had been twelve years a slave after being a
bridegroom of three days, dreams that his wife is marrying, runs to the
cellar, and begins to sing dirges. The king hears, and is moved. "If it
is one of the servants, increase his pay; if a slave, set him free." The
slave tells his story (in three lines); the king bids him take a swift
gray. The slave asks the horses, which is a swift gray. Only one
answers, an old steed with forty wounds. "I am a swift gray; tie two or
three handkerchiefs around your head, and tie yourself to my back!"[175]
He comes upon his father pruning the vineyard. "Whose sheep are those
feeding in the meadows?" "My lost son's." He comes to his mother. "What
bride are they marrying?" "My lost son's." "Shall I get to them in
church while they are crowning?" "If you have a fast horse, you will
find them crowning; if you have a bad horse, you will find them at
table." He finds them at church, and calls out, A bad way ye have: why
do ye not bring out the bride, so that strangers may give her the cup? A
good way we have, they answer, we who bring out the bride, and strangers
give her the cup. Then he takes out his ring, while he is about to
present the cup to the bride. The bride can read; she stands and reads
(his name), and bids the company begone, for her mate has come, the
first crowned.
In other cases we find the hero in prison. He was put in for thirty
days; the keys are lost, and he stays thirty years. Legrand, p. 326, No
145; Νεοελληνικα Αναλεκτα, I, 85, No 19. More frequently he is a
galley slave: Zambelios, p. 678, No 103==Passow, No 448; Tommaseo, III,
152==Passow, No 449; Sakellarios, Κυπριακα, III, 37, No 13:
Νεοελληνικα Αναλεκτα, I, 86, No 20; Jeannaraki, Ασματα κρητικα,
p. 203, No 265. His bad dream [a letter from home] makes him heave a
sigh which shakes the prison, or stops [splits] the galley.[176] In
Tommaseo, III, 152, on reaching the church, he cries, "Stand aside,
gentlemen, stand aside, my masters; let the bride pour for me." She
pours him one cup and two, and exclaims (the ring which was dropped into
the cup having dropped out of the story), My John has come back! Then
they both "go out like candles." In Sakellarios they embrace and fall
dead, and when laid in the grave come up as a cypress and a citron tree.
In the Cretan ballad John does not dismount, but takes the bride on to
the horse and is off with her; so in the beautiful ballad in Fauriel,
II, 140, No 11, 'Ἡ Ἁρπαγη,' "peut-être la plus distinguée de ce
recueil," which belongs with this group, but seems to be later at the
beginning and the end. Even here the bride takes a cup to pour a draught
for the horseman.
In Russia the ring story is told of Dobrynya and Nastasya. Dobrynya,
sent out shortly after his marriage to collect tribute for Vladimir,
requests Nastasya to wait for him twelve years: then she may wed again,
so it be not with Alesha. Twelve years pass. Alesha avows that he has
seen Dobrynya's corpse lying on the steppe, and sues for her hand.
Vladimir supports the suit, and Nastasya is constrained to accept this
prohibited husband. Dobrynya's horse [two doves, a pilgrim] reveals to
his master what is going on, and carries him home with marvellous speed.
Dobrynya gains admittance to the wedding-feast in the guise of a
merry-maker, and so pleases Vladimir with his singing that he is allowed
to sit where he likes. He places himself opposite Nastasya, drops his
ring in a cup, and asks her to drink to him. She finds the ring in the
bottom, falls at his feet and implores pardon.[177] Wollner, Volksepik
der Grossrussen, p. 122 f; Rambaud, La Russie Épique, p. 86 f.