A knight and maid have been together till morning. She weeps; he tells her that he will pay for her honor, will give her an underling and money. She will have none but him, and will go home to her mother. The mother, on seeing her, asks why her gown is long behind and short before, and offers her meat and drink. The daughter refuses them, goes to bed, and dies. So far there is no dallying with the innocence of love, as in the English ballad; the German knight is simply a brutal man of pleasure. But now the knight has a dream, as in 'Fair Margaret and Sweet William;' it is that his love has died. He bids his squire or groom to saddle, and rides to find out what has happened. On his way he hears an ominous bell; further on he sees a grave digging; then he meets men carrying a bier. Set down the bier, he cries, that I may see my love. He turns back the cloth and looks at the dead. She has suffered for him, he will suffer for her. He draws his sword and runs it through his heart. They are buried in one coffin, or in the same grave. In some of the ballads lilies rise from the grave; in a Swedish version ('Jungfruns död'), a linden, the leaves of which intermingle. Next to this we may put a Norwegian and a Swedish ballad, which, having perhaps lost something at the beginning, cannot safely be classed: 'Maarstíg aa hass möy,' Bugge, p. 127, No 26, A, B; 'Herr Malmstens dröm,' Afzelius, III, 104, No 85. Maarstíg dreams that his love's gold ring has got upon another finger, that her gold belt is off her lithe waist, her cloak or her hair is cut to bits, her shoes are full of blood; Malmsten that his love's heart breaks. The pages are ordered to saddle, and Maarstíg, or Malmsten, rides to find what there is in the dream. Maarstíg encounters two maids, who are just from a wake. "Who is dead?" "Maalfrí, thy sweet love." He rides on, meets the bier, bids the bearers set it down, and looks at the dead. Let them dig the grave, he cries, wide and deep, it shall be his bride-house; let them dig the grave deep and long, that is where bride and bridegroom shall go. He sets his sword against a stone, and falls on it. With slight variations, the course of the story is the same for Malmsten. Another Swedish ballad, 'Den sörjande,' Djurklou, p. 106, No 7, lacks even so much introduction as the dream. The lover orders his horse, hears the funeral bell, sees the grave-digging, meets the bier, looks at his dead mistress, and kills himself. A fragment in Dybeck's Runa, 1845, p. 15, begins with the ride and stops short of the death.