The English and Scottish popular ballads, volume 1 (of 5)
General
The English and Scottish popular ballads, volume 1 (of 5)
Ballads, English -- England -- Texts; Ballads, Scots -- Scotland -- Texts
The woman in these ballads is for the most part nameless, or bears a
stock name to which no importance can be attached. Not so with the names
of the knight. Most of these are peculiar, and the Northern ones,
though superficially of some variety, have yet likeness enough to tempt
one to seek for a common original. Grundtvig, with considerable
diffidence, suggests Oldemor as a possible ground-form. He conceives
that the #R# of some of the Scandinavian names may be a relic of a
foregoing Herr. The initial #H# would easily come or go. Given such a
name as Hollemen (Danish #C#), we might expect it to give place to
Halewyn, which is both a family and a local name in Flanders, if the
ballad should pass into the Low Countries from Denmark, a derivation
that Grundtvig is far from asserting. So Ulinger, a local appellation,
might be substituted for the Ulver of Danish #A#. Grundtvig, it must be
borne in mind, declines to be responsible for the historical correctness
of this genealogy, and would be still less willing to undertake an
explanation of the name Oldemor.
In place of Oldemor, Professor Sophus Bugge, in a recent article, marked
by his characteristic sharp-sightedness and ingenuity, has proposed
Hollevern, Holevern, or Olevern as the base-form of all the Northern
names for the bloody knight, and he finds in this name a main support
for the entirely novel and somewhat startling hypothesis that the ballad
we are dealing with is a wild shoot from the story of Judith and
Holofernes.[83] His argument, given as briefly as possible, is as
follows.
That the Bible story was generally known in the Middle Ages no one would
question. It was treated in a literary way by an Anglo-Saxon poet, who
was acquainted with the scriptural narrative, and in a popular way by
poets who had no direct acquaintance with the original.[84] The source
of the story in the ballad must in any case be a tradition many times
removed from the biblical story; that much should be changed, much
dropped, and much added is only what would be expected.
Beginning the comparison with 'Judith' with this caution, it is first
submitted that Holofernes can be recognized in most of the Scandinavian
and German names of the knight. The v of the proposed base-form is
preserved in Ulver, Halewyn, and probably in the English Elf-knight. It
is easy to explain a v's passing over to g, as in Ulinger, Adelger, and
especially under the influence of the very common names in -ger. Again,
v might easily become b, as in Olbert, or m, as in Hollemen, Olmor; and
the initial R of Rulleman, Romor, etc., may have been carried over from
a prefixed Herr.[85]
The original name of the heroine has been lost, and yet it is to be
noticed that Gert Olbert's mother, in German #A#, is called Fru Jutte.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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