The English and Scottish popular ballads, volume 5 (of 5)
General
The English and Scottish popular ballads, volume 5 (of 5)
Ballads, English -- England -- Texts; Ballads, Scots -- Scotland -- Texts
When Roswall came back to the wood after the third jousting, the three
knights appeared together and informed him that they were the men
whom he had delivered from prison, and who had promised to help him
if help he ever needed. They bade him have no fear of the steward.
Lillian had suspected from the second day that the victor was Roswall,
and when he returned to her from his third triumph she intimated that
if he would but tell the whole truth to her father their mutual wish
would be accomplished. But Roswall kept his counsel--very whimsically,
unless it was out of respect to his oath--and Lillian was constrained
to speak for herself, for the marriage was to be celebrated on the
fourth day. She asked her father in plain terms to give her Dissawar
for her husband. The king replied, not unkindly, that she could not
marry below her rank, and therefore must take the prince who had been
selected for her; and to the steward she was married, however sorely
against her will. In the course of the wedding-dinner, the three
Neapolitan lords entered the hall, and saluted the king, the queen, and
Lillian, but not the bridegroom. The king asked why they did no homage
to their prince; they replied that they did not see their prince, went
in search of Roswall, and brought him in. The force of the oath, or
the consciousness of an obligation, must have been by this time quite
extinct, for Roswall divulged the steward’s treacherous behavior, and
announced himself as the victor at the jousts. The steward was hanged
that same day; then they passed to the kirk and married Roswall and
Lillian. There was dancing till supper and after supper, the minstrels
played with good will, and the bridal was kept up for twenty days.
Roswall and Lillian belongs with a group of popular tales of which
the original seems to have been characterized by all or many of the
following marks: (1) the son of a king liberates a man whom his father
has imprisoned; (2) the penalty for so doing is death, and to save his
life the prince is sent out of the country, attended by a servant; (3)
the servant forces the prince to change places and clothes with him;
(4) presents himself at a king’s court as prince, and in his assumed
quality is in a fair way to secure the hand of the king’s daughter;
(5) the true prince, figuring the while as a menial (stable-groom,
scullion, gardener’s lad), is successful, by the help of the man whom
he has liberated, in a thrice-repeated contention (battle, tourney,
race), or task, after which he is in a position to make known his rank
and history; (6) the impostor is put to death, and the prince (who has,
perhaps, in his humbler capacity, already attracted her notice and
regard) marries the princess.[45]
Two Slavic tales, a Bosnian and a Russian, come as near as any to the
story of our romance.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account