#Swedish.# 'Pehr Tyrsons Döttrar i Wänge.' #A#, Arwidsson, II, 413, No 166. #B#, Afzelius, III, 193, No 98: ed. Bergström, I, 380, No 84, 1. #C#, Afzelius, III, 197: ed. Bergström, I, 382, No 84, 2, as old as the last half of the seventeenth century. #D#, Afzelius, III, 202: ed. Bergström, I, 384, No 84, 3. #E#, "C. J. Wessén, De paroecia Kärna (an academical dissertation), Upsala, 1836," Arwidsson, as above, who mentions another unprinted copy in the Royal Library. #A.# Herr Töres' daughters overslept matins, dressed themselves handsomely, and set off for mass. All on the heath they were met by three wood-robbers, who demanded, Will ye be our wives, or lose your lives? The first answered: God save us from trying either! the second, Rather let us range the world! the third, Better death with honor! But First were they the three wood-robbers' wives, And after that they lost their young lives. The robbers strip them; then go and ask to be taken in by Herr Töres. He serves them with mead and wine, but presently begins to wish his daughters were at home. His wife sees him to bed; then returns to her guests, who offer her a silken sark to pass the night with them. "Give me a sight of the silken sark," she cries, with prophetic soul: "God have mercy on my daughters!" She rouses her husband, and tells him that the robbers have slain his bairns. He puts on his armor and kills two of them: the third begs to be spared till he can say who were his kin; his father's name is Töres! Father and mother resolve to build a church for penance, and it shall be called Kerna. #B#, #C#, #D#. The girls meet three "vallare," strolling men, and none of them good (#C#). The robbers cut off the girls' heads on the trunk of a birch (cf. English #C# 5: "It's lean your head upon my staff," and with his pen-knife he has cutted it aff): three springs burst forth immediately. They go to the house, and ask the mother if she will buy silken sarks that nine maids have stitched (#B#). She says: 'Open your sacks, and let me see: Mayhap I shall know them all three.' The father, in #B#, when he discovers that he has slain his own sons, goes to the smith, and has an iron band fastened round his middle. The parents vow to build a church as an expiation, and it shall be called Kerna (#B#, #C#). #Färöe.# 'Torkilds Riim, eller St. Catharinæ Vise, 'Lyngbye, Færøiske Qvæder, p. 534/p. 535. In this form of the story, as in the Icelandic versions which follow, the robbers are not the brothers of the maids. Torkild's two daughters sleep till the sun shines on their beds. Their father wakens them, and tells Katrine she is waited for at church. Katrine dresses herself splendidly, but does not disdain to saddle her own horse. And since no knave was ready to help, Katrine bridled the horse herself. And since no knave was standing about, Herself put the bit in her horse's mouth.