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
A Servian popular tale runs thus. Solomon’s wife fell in love with
another king, and not being able to escape to him on account of the
strict watch which was kept over her, made an arrangement with him
that he should send her a drink which should make her seem to be dead.
Solomon, to test the reality of her death, cut off her little finger,
and seeing no sign of feeling, had her buried. The other king sent his
people to dig her up, restored animation, and took her to wife. When
Solomon found out what had been done, he set out for the king’s palace
with a body of armed men, whom he left in a wood, under orders to
hasten to his relief when they heard the blast of a trumpet, each man
with a green bough in his hand. The king was out a-hunting, the queen
at home. She wiled Solomon into a chamber and locked him up, and when
the king came back from the chase told him to go into the room and cut
Solomon down, but to enter into no talk, since in that case he would
certainly be outwitted. Solomon laughed at the king and his sword:
that was not the way for a king to dispose of a king. He should take
him to a field outside the city, and let a trumpet sound thrice, so
that everybody that wished might witness the spectacle; then he would
find that the very greenwood would come to see one king put another
to death. The king was curious to know whether the wood would come,
and adopted Solomon’s suggestion. At the first sound of the trumpet,
Solomon’s men set forward; at the second they were near at hand, but
could not be distinguished because of the green boughs which they
bore.[6] The king, convinced that the wood was coming, ordered a third
blast. Solomon was rescued; the king and his court were put to the
sword.[7]
A Little Russian story of Solomon and his wife is given by Dragomanof,
Popular Traditions and Tales, 1876, p. 103, translated in Revue des
Traditions Populaires, II, 518, by E. Hins. Solomon takes a wife from
the family of a heathen tsar. She hates him, and concerts an elopement
with a heathen tsarevitch. She pretends to be dead. Solomon burns her
hands through and through with a red-hot iron. She utters no sound, is
buried in the evening, and immediately disinterred and carried off by
her paramour. Solomon goes to the tsarevitch’s house, attended by three
armies, a black, a white, and a red (which are, of course, kept out of
sight), and furnished with three pipes. The tsarevitch has a gallows
set up, and Solomon is taken out to be hanged. He obtains liberty first
to play on his pipes. The sound of the first brings the white army,
that of the second the red, that of the third the black. The tsarevitch
is hanged, the tsaritsa dragged at a horse’s tail.
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.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account