[152] Motherwell also speaks of a ballad of the same nature as quoted in Werner's 'Twenty-Fourth of February.' The stanza cited (in Act I, Scene 1) seems to be Herder's translation of 'Edward' given from memory. [153] We have a similar passage in most of the copies of the third class of the German ballads corresponding to No 4. A brother asks the man who has killed his sister why his shoes [sword, hands] are bloody. See p. 36, p. 38. So in 'Herr Axel,' Arwidsson, No 46, I, 308. [154] These have perhaps been adapted to the stanza of 'The Twa Brothers,' with some versions of which, as already remarked, the present ballad is blended. [155] With regard to translations, I may say now, what I might well have said earlier, that I do not aim at making a complete list, but give such as have fallen under my notice. 14 BABYLON; OR, THE BONNIE BANKS O FORDIE #A. a, b.# 'Babylon; or, The Bonnie Banks o Fordie,' Motherwell's Minstrelsy, p. 88. #c.# The same, Appendix, p. xxii, No XXVI. #B. a.# Herd's MSS, I, 38, II, 76. #b.# 'The Banishd Man,' The Scots Magazine, October, 1803, p. 699, evidently derived from Herd. #C.# Motherwell's MS., p. 172. #D.# Motherwell's MS., p. 174. #E.# 'Duke of Perth's Three Daughters,' Kinloch's Ancient Scottish Ballads, p. 212. #B a# is from tradition of the latter half of the eighteenth century; the other copies from the earlier part of this. Three sisters go out (together, #A#, #B#, #C#, successively, #D#, #E#) to gather flowers (#A#, #B#, #E#). A banished man (outlyer bold, #D#, Loudon lord, #E#) starts up from a hiding-place, and offers them one after the other the choice of being his wife or dying by his hand. (#A.#) 'It's whether will ye be a rank robber's wife, Or will ye die by my wee penknife?' (#D.#) 'Wiltow twinn with thy maidenhead, or thy sweet life?' The first and the second express a simple preference for death, and are killed and laid by, "to bear the red rose company" (#A#). The youngest, in #A#, says she has a brother in the wood, who will kill him if he kills her. The outlaw asks the brother's name, finds that he himself is the man, and takes his own life with the same weapon that had shed the blood of his sisters. #B#, #C#, #D# have three brothers, the youngest of whom is the banished lord (#C#), the outlyer bold (#D#). The story is defective in #B#, #C#. In #D# the outlaw, on finding what he has done, takes a long race, and falls on his knife. The conclusion of #E# is not so finely tragic. A brother John comes riding by just as the robber is about to kill the third sister, apprehends him by the agency of his three pages, and reserves him to be hanged on a tree, Or thrown into the poisond lake, To feed the toads and rattle-snake.