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
[59] They are expressly said to go off in a carriage in #I#, #O#, #Q#,
#T#, #BB#, #DD#, #FF#. Still, in #I#, John says, "Let the black horse
have something to carry under us." In #O#, #T#, #FF#, the horses have a
presentiment of evil to their mistress, and refuse to stir.
[60] One version of 'The Two Sisters,' #Q#, has the same answer:
'I did not put you in with the design
Just for to pull you out again.'
st. 9.
This might be called a formula in Polish ballads: something of the kind
occurs three times in #X#, four times in #B#, five times in #P#; in
other ballads also. In #Q# 25, Catherine clutches the river bank, and
John pushes away her hands. Compare 'The Two Sisters,' #F# 9, further on
in this volume.
[61] #L#, #L*#, #M#, #N#, as already said, confuse the two catastrophes.
John says, in #N#, "Do you see that broad river? I will measure its
depth by throwing you in." We may assume that he was as good as his
word. But Ursula made her way home through woods and forests, weeping
her eyes out on the way. Kind souls dug a grave for her. The conclusion
of #M# is absurd, but need not be particularized. #G# has a passage of
the sternest theology. While Catherine is struggling in the water, her
father comes by. She cries to him to save her. He says, "My dear
Catherine, you have loved pleasure too much. Lord Jesus grant you
drown!" Her mother appears, and makes the same reply to her daughter's
appeal. There are stall-copy terminal morals to many of the ballads.
[62] #N# 1, "A lord came riding from his estate to a neighbor."
[63] The place is high above the water in #R# 10, 11, as in English #D#
9, 29, #C# 4.
[64] #BB# 6, "My mother said that I had seen you; she will _watch me
closely_," may be an accidental coincidence with Danish #A# 7-9, #B#
6-8, etc.
[65] The second, and more valuable, volume of Waldau's B. G. I have
found it impossible to obtain. Reifferscheid cites the ballad at p. 166.
[66] A few silly verses follow in the original, in which Thomas treats
what he had said as a jest. These are properly rejected by Talvj as a
spurious appendage.
[67]
'De achte de soll Helena sin,
De achte de most he sölwer sin.'
German #A b# 13.
[68] Another version of this double ballad, but much corrupted in the
second part, was known to Gérard de Nerval. See Les Filles du Feu,
Œuvres complètes, V, 132.
[69] So far there is agreement in 'La Fille du Prince,' Paymaigre, No
32, p. 106; Poésies pop. de la France, MS., III, fol. 133.
[70] The Asturian romance communicated in two copies by Amador de los
Rios to Jahrbuch für rom. u. eng. Literatur, III, 285, No 2, and the
Portuguese 'Romance de Romeirinha,' Braga, Romanceiro, No 9, p. 24, 'A
Romeira,' Almeida-Garrett, III, 11, are not parallels, though they have
been cited as such.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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