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
There are, besides, in various ballads of this second class, special
resemblances to other European forms. The man (to whom rank of any sort
is assigned only in #N#[62]) comes from a distant country, or from over
the border, in #O#, #Q#, #R#, #T#, #DD#, #GG#, as in English #D#, #E#.
The maid is at a window in #M#, #W#, as in German #G#, #J#, #M#, #O#,
#P#, #Q#, etc. In #Q# 2, John, who has come from over the border,
persuades the maid to go with him by telling her that in his country
"the mountains are golden, the mountains are of gold, the ways of silk,"
reminding us of the wonderland in Danish #A#, #E#, etc. After the pair
have stolen away, they go one hundred and thirty miles, #O#, #DD#, #FF#;
thrice nine miles, #Q#; nine and a half miles, #T#; cross one field and
another, #M#, #R#; travel all night, #GG#; and neither says a word to
the other. We shall find this trait further on in French #B#, #D#,
Italian #B#, #C#, #D#, #F#, #G#. The choice of deaths which we find in
German #A-F# appears in #J#. Here, after passing through a silent wood,
they arrive at the border of the (red) _sea_. She sits down on a stone,
he on a rotten tree. He asks, By which death will you die: by my right
hand, or by drowning in this _river_? They come to a dark wood in #AA#;
he seats himself on a beech-trunk, she near a stream. He asks, Will you
throw yourself into the river, or go home to your mother? So #H#, and
#R# nearly.[63] She prefers death to returning. Previous victims are
mentioned in #T#, #DD#, #HH#. When she calls from the river for help, he
answers, #T# 22, You fancy you are the only one there; six have gone
before, and you are the seventh: #HH# 16, Swim the river; go down to the
bottom; six maids are there already, and you shall be the seventh [four,
fifth]: #DD# 13, Swim, swim away, to the other side; there you will see
my seventh wife.[64]
Other Slavic forms of this ballad resemble more or less the third German
class. A #Wendish# version from Upper Lusatia, Haupt and Schmaler, Part
I, No I, p. 27, makes Hilžička (Lizzie) go out before dawn to cut
grass. Hołdrašk suddenly appears, and says she must pay him some
forfeit for trespassing in his wood. She has nothing but her sickle, her
silver finger-ring, and, when these are rejected, her wreath, and that,
she says, he shall not have if she dies for it. Hołdrašk, who
avows that he has had a fancy for her seven years (cf. German #Y#, and
the Transylvanian mixed form #B#), gives her her choice, to be cut to
pieces by his sword, or trampled to death by his horse. Which way
pleases him, she says, only she begs for three cries. All three are for
her brothers. They ride round the wood twice, seeing nobody; the third
time Hołdrak comes up to them. Then follows the dialogue about the
bloody sword and the dove. When asked where he has left
Hiłžička, Hołdrašk is silent. The elder brother seizes
him, the younger dispatches him with his sword.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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