Uhland's greatest fame rests, then, on his ballads. The difference between these and those of Goethe and Schiller is not merely in the so-called "castle-Romanticism" of Uhland, not in a lingering sentimentality in some of the poorer ones, but in Uhland's ability at will to catch the folk-tone. Sometimes this folk-tone is a question of certain technical tricks, such as the abrupt shift of scene, repetition, varying series of scenes or words, archaized language; but it is just as often in the mood which Uhland throws over the whole. He thus can catch the inner form and essential mood of the popular ballad in a way that not even Goethe does in his _Erlking_. Uhland's ballads and romances vary greatly in quality; none, perhaps, has the grandiose dramatic and ethical note of Schiller's _The Cranes of Ibycus_ and none the power of revealing the hidden forces of nature in anthropomorphic and demoniac form as Goethe does in his _Erlking_ and _The Fisher_. But Uhland's poems are more varied in treatment, even though he cannot be said to have brought any new forms and themes into German verse. There is much talk of poets and poetry in his verse and much of the tender melancholy of parting lovers, of separation and death. There are also some very healthy bacchic notes. Often the ballads are a mere presentation of a scene, with neither plot nor moral; once in a while, too, Uhland shows a humorous touch. But various as are his themes and treatments, the treatment is always nicely adapted to the theme. It is difficult to imagine a better suiting of form and content than in _The Singer's Curse_. The management of the vowel sequences is truly wonderful and the rhymes carry the emotional words with a fine virtuosity. _The Luck of Edenhall_, a variation of a Scottish theme and also of the Biblical "_Mene tekel_," displays without sermonizing the greatest ethical vigor. It has far more dramatic energy than either Byron's or Heine's "Belshazzar" poems, with fully as much dismal foreboding. _Taillefer_, which has been called "the sparkling queen" of Uhland's ballads, has fresh vigor but lacks the power of handling the moral forces of the universe with as much dramatic vividness. It has a naïve joy of life not elsewhere found in Uhland's ballads.