A like ballad is very common in German. A man would take, or keep, a woman for his love or his wife [servant, in one case], if she would spin brown silk from oaten straw. She will do this if he will make clothes for her of the linden-leaf. Then she must bring him shears from the middle of the Rhine. But first he must build her a bridge from a single twig, etc., etc. To this effect, with some variations in the tasks set, in #A#, 'Eitle Dinge,' Rhaw, Bicinia (1545), Uhland, I, 14, No 4 A, Böhme, p. 376, No 293. #B.# 'Van ideln unmöglichen Dingen,' Neocorus († c. 1630), Chronik des Landes Ditmarschen, ed. Dahlmann, p. 180==Uhland, p. 15, No 4 B, Müllenhof, p. 473, Böhme, p. 376, No 294. #C.# Wunderhorn, II, 410 [431]==Erlach, I, 441, slightly altered in Kretzschmer [Zuccalmaglio], II, 620. #D.# 'Unmöglichkeiten,' Schmeller, Die Mundarten Bayerns, p. 556. #E.# Schlesische Volkslieder, p. 115, No 93. #F.# 'Liebes-Neckerei,' Meier, Schwäbische V. L., p. 114, No 39. #G.# 'Liebesspielereien,' Ditfurth, Fränkische V. L., II, 109, No 144. #H.# 'Von eitel unmöglichen Dingen,' Erk's Liederhort, p. 337, No 152^b. #I.# 'Unmögliches Begehren,' V. L. aus Oesterreich, Deutsches Museum, 1862, II, 806, No 16. #J.# 'Unmögliche Dinge,' Peter, Volksthümliches aus Österreichisch-Schlesien, I, 270, No 82. In #K#, 'Wettgesang,' Meinert, p. 80, and #L#, Liederhort, p. 334, No 152, there is a simple contest of wits between a youth and a maid, and in #M#, Erk, Neue Sammlung, #H.# 2, No 11, p. 16, and #N#, 'Wunderbare Aufgaben,' Pröhle, Weltliche u. geistliche Volkslieder, p. 36, No 22 B, the wit-contest is added to the very insipid ballad of 'Gemalte Rosen.' 'Store Fordringar,' Kristensen, Jydske Folkeviser, I, 221, No 82, and 'Opsang,' Lindeman, Norske Fjeldmelodier, No 35 (Text Bilag, p. 6), closely resemble German #M#, #N#. In the Stev, or alternate song, in Landstad, p. 375, two singers vie one with another in propounding impossible tasks. A Wendish ballad, Haupt and Schmaler, I, 178, No 151, and a Slovak, Čelakowsky, II, 68, No 12 (the latter translated by Wenzig, Slawische Volkslieder, p. 86, Westslavischer Märchenschatz, p. 221, and Bibliothek Slavischer Poesien, p. 126), have lost nearly all their story, and, like German #K#, #L#, may be called mere wit-contests.