daughter] in her bosom." All that the nightingale has said is found to be true. According to Danish #O# and Swedish #C#, the knight finds the lady and a child, according to Swedish #B# and Norwegian #A#, #B#, #C#, the lady and two sons, dead. In Danish #B#, #L# (as also the Icelandic 'Sonar Harmur,' #A#, #B#, and Danish 'Stalbroders Kvide,' #A#) the knight digs a grave, and lays mother and children in it; he lays himself with them in #A# and #M#. It is not said whether the children are dead or living, and the point would hardly be raised but for what follows. In Danish #D#, #P# and Swedish #F#, it is expressly mentioned that the children are _alive_, and in #Q#, #R#, #S#, #T#, #U#, six copies of #V#, and #Y#, and also in 'Bolde Hr. Nilaus' Løn,' and in 'Sønnens Sorg,' Danish #A#, Norwegian #A#, #C#, #D#, #E#, the children are heard, or seem to be heard, shrieking from under the ground. Nearly all the versions make the knight run himself through with his sword, either immediately after the others are laid in the grave, or after he has ridden far and wide, because he cannot endure the cries of the children from under the earth. This would seem to be the original conclusion of the story; the horrible circumstance of the children being buried alive is much more likely to be slurred over or omitted at a later day than to be added. We may pass over in silence the less important variations in the very numerous versions of 'Redselille and Medelvold,' nor need we be detained long by the other three Scandinavian forms of the ballad. 'Sønnens Sorg' stands in the same relation to 'Redselille and Medelvold' as 'Hildebrand and Hilde,' does to 'Ribold and Guldborg' (see p. 89 of this volume); that is, the story is told in the first person instead of the third. A father asks his son why he is so sad, Norwegian #A#, #B#, #C#, #D#, Icelandic #A#, #B#, #C#, #D#. Five years has he sat at his father's board, and never uttered a merry word. The son relates the tragedy of his life. He had lived in his early youth at the house of a nobleman, who had three daughters. He was on very familiar terms with all of them, and the youngest loved him. When the time came for him to leave the family, she proposed that he should take her with him, Danish #B#, Icelandic #A#, #B#, #C# [_he_ makes the proposal in Norwegian #C#]. From this point the narrative is much the same as in 'Redselille and Medelvold,' and at the conclusion he falls dead in his father's arms [at the table], Norwegian #A#, #B#, #D#, Icelandic #A#. The mother takes the place of the father in Danish #B# and Swedish, and perhaps it is the mother who tells the story in English #A#, but the bad condition of the text scarcely enables us to say. Danish #B# and the Swedish copy have lost the middle and end of the proper story: there is no wood, no childbirth, no burial. The superfluous boat of some Norwegian versions of 'Redselille' reappears in these, and also in Icelandic #A#, #B#; it