A a was obtained directly from Mrs. Brown of Falkland, in 1800, by Alexander Fraser Tytler. Jamieson says that he gives b verbatim from the recitation of Mrs. Arrott; but it would seem that this must have been a slip of memory, for the two agree except in half a dozen words. B, C, I, J are now for the first time printed. G only was taken down earlier than the present century.
Aytoun remarks (1858): "This is, perhaps, the most popular of all the Scottish ballads, being commonly recited and sung even at the present day." The copy which he gives, I, 232, was "taken down fiom recitation," but is nevertheless a compound of G and A b, with a few unimportant variations, proceed ing, no doubt, from imperfect recollection.[foot-note] The copy in Dixon's Ancient Poems, Ballads, and Songs, p. 56, repeated in Bell's volume of the same title, p. 50, is Gilbert's P. Dixon informs us that the ballad was (in 1846) still popular amongst the peasantry in the west of England. Cunningham gives us a piece called 'The Three Ladies of Leithan Ha,' Songs of Scotland, II, 87, which he would fain have us believe that he did not know he had written himself." The common copies of this tragic lyric," he truly says, " differ very much from this; not so much in the story itself as in the way it is told."
All versions but K, which has pretty nearly lost all point, agree after the opening stanzas. A-E have three ladies and only one knight; F has three knights and one lady; G, I, J, K have three ladies and three knights [lords in G, "bonny boys" in I, the first line being caught from 'Sir Hugh.'] Three knights are to no purpose; only one knight has anything to do. The reason for three ladies is, of course, that the youngest may be preferred to the others, an intention somewhat obscured in B. The ladies are in colors in B, C, I, J, and this seems to be the better interpretation in the case of G, though a strict construction of the language would rather point to the other. The colors are transferred to the knights in P because there is only one lady. In K this is a part of the general depravation of the ballad.
'Rizzardo bello,' Wolf, Volkslieder aus Venetien, No 83, seems to be the same story, with a change of relations such as we often find in ballad poetry. Rizzardo is conducting his bride home, and on the way embraces and kisses her. Her brother witnesses "questo onore," and thrusts his sword into the happy bridegroom's heart. Rizzardo tells bis bride to come on slowly; he will go before to make preparation. He begs his mother to open the doors, for his bride is without, and he is wounded to death. They try to make the bride eat. She says she can neither eat nor drink: she must put her husband to bed. He gives her a ring, saying, Your brother has been the death of me; then another ring, in sign that she is to be wife of two brothers. She answers him as Guldborg answers Ribold, that she would die rather: " Rather die be tween two knives than be wife of two brothers." This ballad was obtained from a peasant woman of Castagnero. Another version, which unfortunately is not printed, was sung by a woman at Ostiglia on the Po.
Dr. Prior remarks that the offence given by not asking a brother's assent to his sister's marriage was in ballad: times regarded as unpardonable. Other cases which show the importance of this preliminary, and the some times fatal consequences of omitting it, are: 'Hr. Peder og Mettelille,' Grundtvig, No 78, II, 325, sts 4, 6; 'Jomfruen i Skoven,' Danske Viser, m, 99, st. 15; 'Jomfru Ellensborg og Hr. Olof,' ib., m, 316, st. 16; 'Iver Lang og hans S0ster,' ib., iv, 87, st. 116; 'Herr Helmer Blaa,' ib., iv, 251, st. 8; 'Jomfru Giselmaar,' ib., iv, 309, st. 13. See Prior's Ancient Danish Ballads, m, 112, 232 f, 416.
There is a very common German ballad, 'Graf Friedrich,' in which a bride receives a mortal wound during the bringing-home, but accidentally, and from the bridegroom's hand. The marriage train is going up a hill; the way is narrow; they are crowded; Graf Friedrich's sword shoots from its sheath and wounds the bride. The bridegroom is exceedingly distressed; he tries to stop the bleeding with his shirt; she begs that they may ride slowly. When they reach the house there is a splendid feast, and everything is set before the bride; but she can neither eat nor drink, and only wishes to lie down. She dies in the night. Her father comes in the morning, and, learning what has happened, runs Graf Friedrich through, then drags his body at a horse's heels, and buries it in a bog. Three lilies sprang from the spot, with an inscription announcing that Graf Friedrich was in heaven, and a voice came from the sky commanding that the body should be disinterred. The bridegroom was then buried with his bride, and this act of reparation was attended with other miraculous manifestations. As the ballads stand now, the kinship of ' Graf Friedrich ' with 'The Cruel Brother ' is not close and cannot be insisted on; still an early connection is not improbable.
The versions of 'Graf Friedrich' are some what numerous, and there is a general agree ment as to all essentials. They are: A, a Nuremberg broadside "of about 1535," which has not been made accessible by a reprint. B, a Swiss broadside of 1647, without place, "printed in Seckendorf's Musenalmanach für 1808, p. 19; " Uhland, No 122, p. 277; Mittler, No 108; Wunderhorn, II, 293 (1857); Erk's Liederhort, No 15% p. 42; Böhme, No 79, p. 166: also, in Wunderhorn, 1808, II, 289, with omission of five stanzas and with many changes; Simrock, No 11, p. 28, omitting four stanzas and with changes; as written down by Goethe for Herder, Düntzer u. Herder, Briefe Goethes, u.s.w., Aus Herder's Nachlass, I, 167, with the omission of eight stanzas and with some variations. C, Wunderhorn (1857), II, 299, from the Schwarzwald, = Erlach, iv, 291, Mittler, No 113. D, Taschenbuch fur Dichter, u. s. w., Theil VIII, 122, from Upper Lusatia, = Erlach, in, 448, Talvj, Charakteristik, p. 421. B, from the Kuhlandchen, Meinert, p. 23, = Mittler, No 109. F, Hoffmann u. Richter, Schlesische V. L., No 19, p. 35, = Mittler, No 112, Erk's Liederhort, No 15, p. 40. G, Zingerle, in Wolf's Zeitschrift fur deutsche Mythologie, I, 341, from Meran. H, from Uckermark, Brandenburg, Mittler, No 114. I, Hesse, from oral tradition, Mittler, No 111. J, Erk u. Irmer, II, 54, No 54, from the neighborhood of Halle, = Mittler, No 110. K, from Estedt, district of Magdeburg, Parisius, p. 31, No 9.
A Danish ballad, 'Den saarede Jomfru,' Grundtvig, No 244, IV, 474, has this slight resemblance with 'Graf Friedrich:' While a knight is dancing with a princess, his sword glides from the scabbard and cuts her hand. To save her partner from blame, she represents to her father that she had cut herself with her brother's sword. This considerateness so touches the knight (who is, of course, her equal in rank) that he offers her his hand. The Danish story is found also in Norwegian and in Färöe ballads.
The peculiar testament made by the bride in 'The Cruel Brother,' by which she bequeaths good things to her friends, but ill things to the author of her death, is highly characteristic of ballad poetry. It will be found again in 'Lord Ronald,' 'Edward,' and their analogues. Still other ballads with this kind of testament are: ' Frillens Haevn,' Grundtvig, No 208 C, 16-18, iv, 207; a young man, stabbed by his leman, whom he was about to give up in order to marry, leaves his lands to his father, his bride-bed to his sister, his gilded couch to his mother, and his knife to his leman, wishing it in her body. 'Møen paa Baalet,' Grundtvig, No 109 A, 18-21, II, 587; Ole, falsely accused by her brother, and condemned to be burned, gives her mother her silken sark, her sister her shoes, her father her horse, and her brother her knife, with the same wish. 'Kong Valdemar og' hans Søster,' Grundtvig, No 126, III, 97, has a testament in A-B and I; in I, 14-19 (III, 912), Liden Kirsten bequeaths her knife, with the same imprecation, to the queen, who, in the other copies, is her unrelenting foe: so Lillelin to Herr Adelbrand, Danske Viser, III, 386, No 162, 16-18, Kristensen, I, 262, No 100, A 20-23, having been dragged at a horse's heels in resentment of a taunt. 'Hustru og Mands Moder,' Grundtvig, No. 84, II, 404, has a testament in A, B, D, H, and in the 'last three a bequest of shoes or sark to a cruel mother-in-law or foster-mother, with the wish that she may have no peace or much pain in the wearing. ' Catarina de Li6,' Briz y Candi, Cansons de la Terra, I, 209, has been beaten by her mother-in-law while in a delicate state. When she is at the point of death, the mother-in-law asks what doctor she will have and what will she will make. "My will," says Catherine, "will not please you much. Send back my velvet dress to my father's; my gala dress give my sister; give my working dress to the maid, my jewels to the Virgin." " And what will you leave to me?" "What I leave you will not please you much: my husband to be hanged, my mother-in-law to be quartered, and my sister-in-law to be burned." 'Le Testament de Marion,' another version of this story from the south of France, Uchaud, Gard, Podsies pop. de la France, Manuscript, IV, fol. 283, bequeaths "my laces to my sister Marioun, my prettiest gowns to my sister Jeanneton; to my rascal of a husband three fine cords, and, if that is not enough (to hang him), the hem of his shirt." The Portuguese ballad of ' Dona Helena ' rather implies than expresses the imprecation: Braga, C.P. do Archipelago Aqoriano, p. 225, No 15, p. 227, No 16; Almeida-Garrett, in, 56; Hartung, I, 233-43, No 18. Helena leaves her husband's house when near childbirth, out of fear of his mother. Her husband, who does not know her reason, goes after her, and compels her to re turn on horseback, though she has just borne a son. The consequences are what might be expected, and Helena desires to make her shrift and her will. She leaves one thing to her oldest sister, another to her youngest. "And your boy? " "To your bitch of a mother, cause of my woes." "Rather to yours," says the husband, "for I shall have to kill mine" (so Braga; Garrett differs somewhat). 'Die Frau zur Weissenburg ' (A), Uhland, p. 287, No 123 B, Scherer's Jungbrunnen, p. 94, No 29; 'Das Lied von der Löwenburg' (B), Simrock, p. 65, No 27; 'Hans Steutlinger' (C), Wunderhorn, II, 168 (1857), all one story, have a bitterly sarcastic testament. A lady instigates her paramour to kill her husband. The betrayed man is asked to whom he will leave his children [commit, A, bequeath, B, C]. "To God Almighty, for he knows who they are." "Your property?" "To the poor, for the rich have enough." "Your wife?" "To young Count Frederic, whom she always liked more than me (A)." "Your castle?" "To the flames."
In some cases there is no trace of animosity towards the person who has caused the testator's death; as in 'El testamento de Amelia' (who has been poisoned by her mother), Mila, Observaciones, p. 103, No 5, Briz y Salt6, Cansons de la Terra, II, 197 (two copies); 'Herren Bald,' Afzelius, I, 76, No 16 (new ed. I, 59, No 15); a Swedish form of 'Frillens Hsevn,' Grundtvig, IV, 203; Reneé le Glaz' and 'Ervoanik Le Lintier,' Luzel, C.P. de la Basse Bretagne, I, 405, 539, 553. There are also simple testaments where there is no occasion for an ill remembrance, as in 'Ribold og Guldborg,' Grundtvig, No 82, I, K, L, U, X, JE, Kristensen, II, No 84 B; 'Pontplancoat,' Luzel, I, 383, 391. And, again, there are parodies of these wills. Thus the fox makes his will: Grundtvig, Gamle danske Minder, 1854, 'Mikkels Arvegods,' p. 24, and p. 25 a copy from a manuscript three hundred years old; Kristensen, Jyske Folkeviser, II, 324, No 90; 'Reven og Bjonnen,' 'Reven og Nils fiskar,' Landstad, Nos 85, 86, p. 637, 639: and the robin, Robin's Tesment,' Buchan, I, 273, Herd's Manuscripts, i, 154, and Scottish Songs (1776), II, 166, Chambers' Popular Rhymes, p. 38, "new edition.".
Translated in Grundtvig's Engelske og skotske Folkeviser, No 33, p. 212,FP, with use of A and G b; Aytoun's copy, with omissions, by Rosa Warrens, Schottische Volkslieder der Vorzeit, No 17, p. 80; after Allingham and others, by Knortz, Lieder und Romanzen Alt-Englands, No 5, p. 16.
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