The English and Scottish popular ballads, volume 1 (of 5)
General
The English and Scottish popular ballads, volume 1 (of 5)
Ballads, English -- England -- Texts; Ballads, Scots -- Scotland -- Texts
#C a# has the names Odilia and Hilsinger, a trooper (reiter). Odilia was
early left an orphan, and as she grew up "she grew into the trooper's
bosom." He offered her seven pounds of gold to be his, and "she thought
seven pounds of gold a good thing." We now fall into the track of #A#.
Odilia dresses herself like a bride, and calls to the trooper to come
and get her. They ride first to a high hill, where she asks to eat and
drink, and then go on to a linden-tree, on which seven maids are
hanging. The choice of three deaths is offered, the sword chosen, he is
entreated to spare his coat, she seizes his sword and hews off his head.
The false tongue suggests blowing the horn. Odilia thinks "much biding
or blowing is not good." She rides away, and presently meets the
trooper's "little foot-page" (bot), who fancies she has Hilsinger's
horse and sword. "He sleeps," she says, "with seven maids, and thought I
was to be the eighth." This copy concludes with a manifestly spurious
stanza. #C b# agrees with #C a# for ten stanzas, as to the matter, and
so far seems to be #C a# improved by Zuccalmaglio, with such
substitutions as a princely castle for "seven pounds of gold." The last
stanza (11),
Und als die Sternlein am Himmel klar,
Ottilia die achte der Todten war,
was, no doubt, suggested by the last of #F#, another of Zuccalmaglio's
versions, and, if genuine, would belong to a ballad of the third class.
#D# has the name Odilia for the maid, but the knight, or trooper, has
become expressly a robber (ritter, reiter, räuber). They ride to a green
heath, where there is a cool spring. Odilia asks for and gets a draught
of water, and is told that at the linden-tree there will be eating and
drinking for them. And when they come to the linden, there hang six,
seven maids! All proceeds as before. The talking head is lost. Odilia
meets the robber's mother, and makes the usual reply.[37]
#E# resembles #C# closely. Odilia becomes Schondilg (Schön Odilie),
Räuber returns to Ritter, or Reiter, and the servant-maid bribe of seven
pounds of gold rises to ten tons.[38] Schondilg's toilet, preparatory to
going off (6-8), is described with a minuteness that we find only in the
Dutch ballad (12-16). After this, there is no important variation. She
meets the trooper's three brothers, and makes the same replies to them
as to the mother in #D#.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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