[104] Grundtvig, 84 #D#, #E#; Kristensen, I, No 74 #A#, #B#, #C#; II, No 35 #A#, #B#, #C#. [105] Eadem amatoris sui uxorem, quod in eam dicacule probrum dixerat, jam in sarcina prægnationis, obsæpto utero et repigrato fetu, perpetua prægnatione damuavit, et, ut cuncti numerant, jam octo annorum onere misella illa velut elephantum paritura distenditur. I, 9. [106] We may suppose with closed fingers, or clasping the head, though this is not said. Antique vases depict one or two Ilithyias as standing by with hands elevated and _open_, during the birth of Athene from the head of Zeus. Welcker, Kleine Schriften, III, 191, note 12. 7 EARL BRAND #A. a. b.# 'Earl Bran,' Mr Robert White's papers. #c.# 'The Brave Earl Brand and the King of England's Daughter,' Bell, Ancient Poems, etc., p. 122. #d.# Fragmentary verses remembered by Mr R. White's sister. #B.# 'The Douglas Tragedy,' Scott's Minstrelsy, III, 246, ed. 1803. #C.# 'Lord Douglas,' Motherwell's MS., p. 502. #D.# 'Lady Margaret,' Kinloch MSS, I, 327. #E.# 'The Douglas Tragedy,' Motherwell's Minstrelsy, p. 180. #F.# 'The Child of Ell,' Percy MS., p. 57; Hales and Furnivall, I, 133. 'Earl Brand,' first given to the world by Mr Robert Bell in 1857, has preserved most of the incidents of a very ancient story with a faithfulness unequalled by any ballad that has been recovered from English oral tradition. Before the publication of 'Earl Brand,' #A c#, our known inheritance in this particular was limited to the beautiful but very imperfect fragment called by Scott 'The Douglas Tragedy,' #B#; half a dozen stanzas of another version of the same in Motherwell's Minstrelsy, #E#; so much of Percy's 'Child of Elle' as was genuine, which, upon the printing of his manuscript, turned out to be one fifth, #F#; and two versions of Erlinton, #A#, #C#.[107] What now can be added is but little: two transcripts of 'Earl Brand,' one of which, #A a#, has suffered less from literary revision than the only copy hitherto printed, #A c#; a third version of 'The Douglas Tragedy,' from Motherwell's manuscript, #C#; a fourth from Kinloch's manuscripts, #D#; and another of 'Erlinton,' #B#. Even 'Earl Brand' has lost a circumstance that forms the turning-point in Scandinavian ballads, and this capital defect attends all our other versions, though traces which remain in 'Erlinton' make it nearly certain that our ballads originally agreed in all important particulars with those which are to this day recited in the north of Europe.