The English and Scottish popular ballads, volume 2 (of 5)
General
The English and Scottish popular ballads, volume 2 (of 5)
Ballads, English -- England -- Texts; Ballads, Scots -- Scotland -- Texts
We are told by Percy, in a note to stanza 63, that though liberties
have been taken with that portion of the ballad which follows, yet
wherever the fourth edition differs from the preceding ones it has
been brought nearer to the folio.[59] Some notes of readings of the
folio are also furnished in the fourth edition (and are here restored),
which were not given in the others. While we cannot but be vexed that
so distinguished a ballad, not injured much, so far as we can see, by
time, should not come down to us as it came to Percy, our loss must not
be exaggerated. The changes made by the editor, numerous enough, no
doubt, cannot be very material until we approach the end. Stanzas 63-66
are entirely suspicious, and it may even be questioned whether the
manuscript contained a word that is in them.
The name of Bremor, son of the king of Spain, and "a heathen hound" (if
this be not Percy's interpolation), taken with certain resemblances
in the story, very naturally suggested to Professor Sophus Bugge
(Grundtvig, IV, 704) a connection between this ballad and 'Young Orm
and Bermer-Giant,' 'Orm Ungersvend og Bermer-Rise.'[60] The giant, who
is described as a rabid berserker, presents himself at the Danish court
(Grundtvig, #A#), and demands that the king shall give him his daughter
and half his land, or find a man who will fight in the ring with him.
The king refuses daughter and land, and says he will find a champion.
He offers the chance of winning so fair a may to his men, and no one
dares say a word except Young Orm, who sits lowest at the board: he
will be the man. But first Orm provides himself with an irresistible
sword, which is buried in his father's tomb, and is yielded by the dead
man only upon the condition that his son shall take the revenge due
for his death. With this sword Orm, like the child in 'Sir Aldingar,'
cuts the giant through at the knees, being, he says, not tall enough
to strike higher. He then goes to Iceland, and fights three days with
the men who had slain his father, but without prevailing. A mermaid,
from the sea-bottom, cries out to him that his sword is under a spell,
and that he must whirl it three times round his head and then stick the
point in the ground. This done, he has no difficulty in despatching his
foes. He returns to the Danish court, and marries the princess.
The likeness between the English ballad and the Danish (which
represents well enough the other Norse poems) is that a youthful
champion wins a king's daughter by killing a truculent competitor, who
has nearly the same name in both (Bremor, Bermer).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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