6 He hadna been into the sea An hour but barely three, Till by it came Our Blessed Lady, Her dear young son her wi. 7 'Will ye gang to your men again, Or will ye gang wi me? Will ye gang to the high heavens, Wi my dear son and me?' 8 'I winna gang to my men again, For they would be feared at mee; But I woud gang to the high heavens, Wi thy dear son and thee.' 9 'It's for nae honour ye did to me, Brown Robyn, It's for nae guid ye did to mee; But a' is for your fair confession You've made upon the sea.' * * * * * 4^4. if I sink. [10] Danish #B# begins very like 'Sir Patrick Spens.' A skeely skipper Haagen eyes the sky and tells his master that any one who sails to-day will never come back alive, etc. [11] In Danish #A# the ship is stopped by a sea-troll that lay on the bottom. The helmsman crying out, Why does not the ship sail? the troll replies, You have a sinful man among you; throw him over. It certainly looks officious of a heathen troll to be arresting sinners. See also 'Germand Gladensvend, Grundtvig, No 33, and the corresponding 'Sætrölls kvæði,' Íslenzk fornkvæði, No 5. Hysmine is selected by lot and thrown over, in a storm, "according to sailor's custom," in the Greek romance of Hysmine and Hysminias, VII, 12, 15. Serpents (nâgas) stop a ship in mid ocean and demand that a certain holy man whose instructions they desire shall be delivered to them; when the holy man has thrown himself in, the vessel is free to move: Burnouf, Introduction à l'Histoire du Buddhisme indien, p. 316 f. (Rambaud, La Russie Épique, pp 175 f, 178 f.) [12] A resemblance to Jonah, but a circumstance not unlikely to be found in any such story. In Danish #C#, Kristensen, I, 16, after the skipper and steersman have informed Peter that he is to be thrown overboard, they suggest the confession which he elsewhere makes unprompted. So Joshua to Achan, Joshua vii, 19, and Saul to Jonathan, 1 Samuel xiv, 43, in a similar emergency. [13] These touching verses, which are of a kind found elsewhere in ballads (see 'The Twa Brothers,' I, 436 f), are preceded by a vow in Swedish #A#, and the same vow ends Swedish #E#: 'And if God would but help me, That I might come to some land, So surely would I build a church All on the snow-white sand. 'And if I might but come to some town, And God would so much stead, So surely would I build a church, And roof it over with lead.' Slavic examples of these affecting messages are found in Roger, No 141, p. 80==Konopka, No 14, p. 114; Woicicki, Pieśńi, I, 76, II, 328, W. z Oleska, p. 507, No 27; Zegota Pauli, P. l. polskiego, p. 97, No 9, Lipiński, p. 90, No 47; Kolberg, No 16, pp 196-205, #c#, #d#, #l#, #m#, #p#, #s#, #x#; Kozlowski, p. 43, No 8; Sakarof, Pyesni, IV, 8. See also 'Mary Hamilton,' further on.