[131] Swedish #H# begins, "Dear sister, come follow me to the clapping-stone:" "Nay, I have no foul clothes." So #F# 6, 7, #G# 4, 5, Färöe #A# 6, nearly; and then follows the suggestion that they should wash themselves. Another of Rancken's copies begins, "Two sisters went to the bucking-stone, to buck their clothes snow-white," #H#; and so Rancken's #S# nearly. [132] There are, besides the two fishermen, in Norwegian #A#, two "twaddere," i.e., landloupers, possibly (Bugge) a corruption of the word rendered pilgrims, Färöe vallarar, Swedish vallare. The vallarar in these ballads are perhaps more respectable than those whose acquaintance we shall make through the Norse versions of 'Babylon,' and may be allowed to be harmless vagrants, but scarcely better, seeing that they are ranked with "staff-carls" in Norges Gamle Love, cited by Cleasby and Vigfusson at 'vallari.' [133] A harp in the Icelandic and Norwegian ballads, Färöe #A#, #B#, #C#, Swedish #A#, #B#, #D#, #G#, #H#; a harp in English #B#, #C#, #G#, #J#. A harp is not named in any of the Danish versions, but a fiddle is mentioned in #C#, #E#, #H#, is plainly meant in #A#, and may always be intended; or perhaps _two_ fiddles in all but #H# (which has only one fiddler), and the corrupted #G#. #D# begins with two fiddlers, but concludes with only one. We have a fiddle in Swedish #C#, and in English #A#, #D#, #E#, #F#, #I#, #J#, #K#, #L#, #O#, #P#; both harp and fiddle in #H#. [134] Some of the unprinted Norwegian ballads are not completely described, but a departure from the rule of the major part would probably have been alluded to. [135] The stanza, 9, in which this is said is no doubt as to its form entirely modern, but not so the idea. #I# has "the first spring that he playd, _it_ said," etc. [136] The fourth string is _said_ to speak in Färöe #A# 30, but no utterance is recorded, and this is likely to be a mistake. In many of the versions, and in this, after the strings have spoken individually, they unite in a powerful but inarticulate concord. [137] #I# has lost the terminal stanzas. [138] Not #M#, and apparently not #D#, which ends: When he kissed the harp upon the mouth, his heart broke. [139] So the traitor John pushes away Catherine's hands in 'Lady Isabel and the Elf Knight,' Polish #Q# 25 (see p. 40). In the French versions #A#, #C#, #E# of the same, the knight catches at a branch to save himself, and the lady cuts it off with his sword. [140] The miller begins to lose character in #H#: 14 He dragged her out unto the shore, And stripped her of all she wore. [141] Neus also refers to an Esthonian saga of Rögutaja's wife, and to 'Die Pfeiferin,' a tale, in Das Inland, 1846, No 48, Beilage, col. 1246 ff, 1851, No 14, col. 230 ff; and to a Slovenian ballad in Tielemann, Livona, ein historisch-poetisches Taschenbuch, 1812, p. 187. [142] All these are cited in Köhler's note, Gonzenbach, II, 235. 11 THE CRUEL BROTHER