But, as a rule, the transformations that are made the subject of the Scottish ballads are of a more lasting kind; the prince or princess, tempted by a kiss, or at the touch of enchanted wand or ring, is doomed for a time to crawl in the loathly shape of snake or dragon about a tree, or swim the waters as mermaid or other monstrous brood of the seas of romance, until the appointed time when the deliverer comes, and by like magic art, or by the pure force of courage and love, looses the spell. _Kempion_ is a type of a class of story that runs, in many variations, through the romances of chivalry, and from these may have been passed down to the ballad-singer, although ruder forms of it are common to nearly all folk-mythology. The hero is one of those kings' sons, who, along with kings' daughters, people the literature of ballad and _maerchen_; and he has heard of the 'heavy weird' that has been laid upon a lady to haunt the flood around the Estmere Crags as a 'fiery beast.' He is dared to lean over the cliff and kiss this hideous creature; and at the third kiss she turns into 'The loveliest ladye e'er could be.' The rescuer asks-- 'O, was it wehrwolf in the wood, Or was it mermaid in the sea? Or was it man, or vile woman, My ain true love, that misshaped thee?' Nor do we wonder to hear that it was the doing of the wicked and envious stepmother, on whom there straight falls a worse and a well-deserved weird. In _King Henrie_, too, it is the stepdame that has wrought the mischief. He is lying 'burd alane' in his hunting hall in the forest, when his grey dogs cringe and whine; the door is burst in, and 'A grisly ghost Stands stamping on the floor.' The manners of this _Poltergeist_ are in keeping with her rough entrance on the scene; her ogreish appetite is not satisfied even when she had devoured his hounds, his hawks, and his steed. As in the _Wife of Bath's Tale_, and the _Marriage of Sir Gawain_ and other legends of the same type, the knight's courtesy withstands every test, and he is rewarded for having given the lady her will: 'When day was come and night was gane And the sun shone through the ha', The fairest ladye that e'er was seen Lay between him and the wa'.'