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
In #J#, again, the knight comes riding through the reeds, and sings such
a song that Brown Annele, lying under the casement, exclaims, "Could I
but sing like him, I would give my troth and my honor!" There are, by
mistake, two[45] doves in stanza 4, that warn Annele not to be beguiled,
but this error is set right in the next stanza. When she asks what the
dove is cooing, the answer is, "It is cooing about its red foot; it went
barefoot all winter." We have here again, as in #H#, the spring in the
wood, "mit Blute umrunnen," and the lady asks again the meaning of the
bloody spring. The knight replies, in a stanza which seems both
corrupted and out of place, "This is where the eleven pure virgins
perished." Then follow the same incidents as in #G-I#. He says she must
hang with the eleven in the fir, and be queen over all. Her cries are
for her father, for Our Lady, and for her brother, who is a hunter in
the forest. The hunter makes all haste to his sister, twists a withe,
and hangs the knight without a word between them, then takes his sister
by the hand and conducts her home, with the advice never more to trust a
knight: for all which she returns her devout thanks.[46]
#K# and #L# are of the same length and the same tenor as #J#. There are
no names in #L#; in #K# both Annele and Ulrich, but the latter is very
likely to have been inserted by the editor. #K#, #L# have only one dove,
and in neither does the lady ask the meaning of the dove's song. The
knight simply says, "Be still; thou liest in thy throat!" Both have the
bloody spring, but out of place, for it is very improperly spoken of by
the knight as the spot he is making for:
'Wir wollen ein wenig weiter vorwärts faren,
Bis zu einem kühlen Waldbrunnen,
Der ist mit Blut überronnen.'[47]
L 26-28, 17-19.
The three cries are for father, mother, brother. In #K# the brother
fights with "Ulrich" two hours and a half before he can master him, then
despatches him with his two-edged sword, and hangs him in a withe. He
fires his rifle in #L#, to announce his coming, and hears his sister's
laugh; then stabs the knight through the heart. The moral of #J# is
repeated in both: Stay at home, and trust no knight.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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