[82] It is well known that in the Middle Ages the blood of children or of virgins was reputed a specific for leprosy (see, e.g., Cassel in the Weimar Jahrbücher, I, 408.) Some have thought to find in this fact an explanation of the murders in these ballads and in the Bluebeard stories, and, according to Rochholz, this theory has been adopted into popular tradition in the Aargau. So far as this cycle of ballads is concerned, there is as much ground for holding that the blood was wanted to cure leprosy as for believing that the gold was wanted for _aurum potabile_. [83] Det philologisk-historiske Samfunds Mindeskrift i Anledning af dets femogtyveaarige Virksomhed, 1854-79, Bidrag til den nordiske Balladedigtnings Historie, p. 75 ff. [84] Bugge cites the Old German Judith, Müllenhoff u. Scherer, Denkmäler, 2d ed., No 37, p. 105, to show how the Bible story became modified under a popular treatment. [85] Holefern might doubtless pass into Halewyn, but there is not the slightest need of Holefern to _account_ for Halewyn. Halewyn, besides being a well-known local and family appellation, is found in two other Dutch ballads, one of which (Lootens and Feys, p. 66, No 38; Hoffmann, p. 46, No 11) has no kind of connection with the present, and is no more likely to have derived the name from this than this from that. It shall not be denied that Adelger, Hilsinger, Rullemann, Reimvord might have sprung from or have been suggested by Holofern, under the influence of familiar terminations, but it may be remarked that Hildebrand, Ravengaard, Valdemar, Rosmer, if they had occurred in any version, would have occasioned no greater difficulty. [86] The Old German poem makes Holofernes kindle with desire for Judith the moment he sees her, and he bids his men bring her to his tent. They lift her up and bring her in. [87] It should be observed that these words are from the dove's warning. [88] Simply because he had no other apartment at his disposition. Shall we add, the Polish mother putting her daughter into the "new room," in which she kept her valuables? [89] Bugge holds that the ballad was derived by the Scandinavians from the Germans, more precisely by the Danes from a Low German form. This, he says, would follow from what he has maintained above, and he finds support for his view in many particular traits of Norse copies. Thus, one of the Norwegian names for the murderer is Alemarken. The first three syllables are very near to the Danish Oldemor; but -ken seems to be the German diminutive suffix, and can only be explained by the ballad having come from Germany.