Färöe #A#, #B#, have: (1) The bride was my sister; (2) The bride was my murderer; (3) The bridegroom was my true-love. The bride then says that the harp disturbs her much, and that she lists to hear it no more. Most impressive of all, with its terse, short lines, is Icelandic #A#: The first string made response: 'The bride was my sister once.' The bride on the bench, she spake: 'The harp much trouble doth make.' The second string answered the other: 'She is parting me and my lover.' Answered the bride, red as gore: 'The harp is vexing us sore.' The canny third string replied: 'I owe my death to the bride.' He made all the harp-strings clang; The bride's heart burst with the pang. This is the wicked sister's end in both of the Icelandic ballads and in Färöe #A#, #B#. In Swedish #A#, #G#, at the first stroke on the harp she laughs; at the second she grows pale [has to be undressed]; upon the third she lay dead in her bed [falls dead on the floor]. She is burned in Danish #A#, #B#, #C#, #F#, #G#, Swedish #B#, Norwegian #A#, #B#, #C#, #I#, #M#. In Norwegian #K#, #L#, the younger sister (who is restored to life) begs that the elder may not be burned, but sent out of the country (cf. English #R b c#); nevertheless, she is buried alive in #L#, which is her fate also in #E#, and in other unprinted versions. A prose comment upon Danish #I# has her stabbed by the bridegroom. Norwegian #B# 21 makes the bride, in her confusion at the revelations of the harp, ask the bridegroom to drive the fiddler out of the house. So far from complying, the bridegroom orders him mead and wine, and the bride to the pile. In Norwegian #C# the bride treads on the harper's foot, then orders the playing to stop; but the bridegroom springs from the table, and cries, Let the harp have its song out, pays no regard to the lady's alleging that she has so bad a head that she cannot bear it, and finally sends her to the pile. So, nearly, Norwegian #A#. In Danish #A#, #C#, #D#, #H#, #L#, vainly in the first two, the bride tries to hush the fiddler with a bribe. He endeavors to take back what he has said in #D#, #L#, declaring himself a drunken fool (the passage is borrowed from another ballad): still in #L#, though successful for the nonce, she comes to the stake and wheel some months after. In #H# the fiddler dashes the instrument against a stone, seemingly to earn his bribe, but this trait belongs to versions which take the turn of the Norwegian. In #C# 15 the bride springs from the table, and says, Give the fiddlers a trifle, and let them go. This explains the last stanza of English #A# (cf., Norwegian #B# 21): Now pay the miller for his payne, And let him bee gone in the divel's name.