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
#Danish.# 'Brud ikke Mø,' Grundtvig, No 274, V, 304. There are two old
versions (more properly only one, so close is the agreement), and a
third from recent tradition. This last, Grundtvig's #C#, from Jutland,
1856, seems to be of Swedish origin, and, like Swedish #C#, #D#, wants
the talking coverlet, though it has kept the other material feature,
that of the substitution. #A# is found in two manuscripts, one of the
sixteenth and the other of the seventeenth century. #B# is the
well-known 'Ingefred og Gudrune,' or 'Herr Samsings Nattergale,' Syv,
IV, No 62, Danske Viser, No 194, translated in Jamieson's Illustrations,
p. 340, and by Prior, III, 347. A later form of #B#, from recent
recitation, 1868, is given in Kristensen's Jydske Folkeviser, I, No 53.
The story in #A# runs thus: Sølverlad and Vendelrod [Ingefred and
Gudrune] were sitting together, and Vendelrod wept sorely. Sølverlad
asked her sister the reason, and was told there was cause. Would she be
bride one night? Vendelrod would give her wedding clothes and all her
outfit. But Sølverlad asked for bridegroom too, and Vendelrod would not
give up her bridegroom, happen what might. She went to church and was
married to Samsing. On the way from church they met a spaeman [#B#,
shepherd], who warned Vendelrod that Samsing had some nightingales that
could tell him whether he had married a maid or no. The sisters turned
aside and changed clothes, but could not change cheeks! Sølverlad was
conducted to Samsing's house and placed on the bride bench. An unlucky
jester called out, "Methinks this is not Vendelrod!" but a gold ring
adroitly thrown into his bosom opened his eyes still wider, and made him
pretend he had meant nothing. The supposed bride is put to bed. Samsing
invokes his nightingales: "Have I a maid or no?" They reply, it is a
maid that lies in the bed, but Vendelrod stands on the floor. Samsing
asks Vendelrod why she avoided her bed, and she answers: her father
lived on the strand; her bower was broken into by a large company of
men, and one of them robbed her of her honor. In this case there are no
tokens for evidence. Samsing owns immediately that he and his men had
broken into the bower, and Vendelrod's agony is over.
Some of the usual tokens, gold harp, sark, shoes, and silver-mounted
knife, are found in the later #C#. Danish #D# is but a single initial
stanza.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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