Child Ballads - Narrative

B a is from tradition of the latter half of the eighteenth century; the other copies from the earlier part of this.

Three sisters go out (together, A, B, C, successively, D, E) to gather flowers (A, B, E). A banished man (outlyer bold, D, London lord, E) starts up from a hiding-place, and offers them one after the other the choice of being his wife or dying by his hand.

The first and the second express a simple preference for death, and are killed and laid by, "to bear the red rose company" (A). The youngest, in A, says she has a brother in the wood, who will kill him if he kills her. The outlaw asks the brother's name, finds that he himself is the man, and takes his own life with the same weapon that had shed the blood of his sisters. B, C, D have three brothers, the youngest of whom is the banished lord (C), the outlyer bold (D). The story is defective in B, C. In D the outlaw, on finding what he has done, takes a long race, and falls on his knife. The conclusion of A is not so finely tragic. A brother John comes riding by just as the robber is about to kill the third sister, apprehends him by the agency of his three pages, and reserves him to be hanged on a tree,

Or thrown into the poisond lake,
To feed the toads and rattle-snake.

According to the account given by Herd, and repeated by Jamieson, the story of the lost conclusion of B made the banished man discover that he had killed his two brothers as well as his two sisters. This ballad, with additional circumstances, is familiar to all branches of the,Scandinavian race.

Danish. There are many versions from oral tradition, as yet unprinted, besides these two: A, 'Hr. Truels's Døttre,' Danske Viser, III, 392, No 164, there reprinted from Sandvig, Beskrivelse over Øen Møen, 1776: B, 'Herr Thors Børn,' from recent tradition of North Sleswig, Berggreen, Danske FolkeSange, 3d ed., p. 88, No 42.

A. Herr Truels' three daughters oversleep their matins one morning, and are roused by their mother. If we have overslept our matins, they say, we will make up at high mass. They set out for church, and in a wood fall in with three robbers, who say:

Whether will ye be three robbers' wives,
Or will ye rather lose your lives?'

Swedish. 'Pehr Tyrsons Döttrar i Wänge.' A, Arwidsson, II, 413, No 166. B, Afzelius, III, 193, No 98: ed. Bergström, 380, No 84, 1. C, Afzelius, 11I, 197: ed. Bergström, 1, 382, No 84, 2, as old as the last half of the seventeenth century. D, Afzelius, 202: ed. Bergström, 1, 384, No 84, 3. E, "C.J. Wessén, De paroecia Kärna (an academical dissertation), Upsala, 1836," Arwidsson, as above, who mentions another unprinted copy in the Royal Library.

A. Herr Töres' daughters overslept matins, dressed themselves handsomely, and set off for mass. All on the heath they were met by three wood-robbers, who demanded, Will ye be our wives, or lose your lives? The first answered: God save us from trying either! the second, Rather let us range the world! the third, Better death with honor! But

First were they the three wood-robbers' wives,
And after that they lost their young lives.

The robbers strip them; then go and ask to be taken in by Herr Töres. He serves them with mead and wine, but presently begins to wish his daughters were at home. His wife sees him to bed; then returns to her guests, who offer her a silken sark to pass the night with them. "Give me a sight of the silken sark," she cries, with prophetic soul: "God have mercy on my daughters!" She rouses her husband, and tells him that the robbers have slain his bairns. He puts on his armor and kills two of them: the third begs to be spared till he can say who were his kin; his father's name is Mires! Father and mother resolve to build a church for penance, and it shall be called Kerna. B, C, D. The girls meet three "vallare," strolling men, and none of them good (C). The robbers cut off the girls' heads on the trunk of a birch (cf. English C 5: "It 's lean your head upon my staff," and with his pen-knife he has tutted it aff): three springs burst forth immediately. They go to the house, and ask the mother if she will buy silken sarks that nine maids have stitched (B). She says:

Open your sacks, and let me see:
Mayhap I shall know them all three.'

The father, in B, when he discovers that he has slain his own sons, goes to the smith, and has an iron band fastened round his middle. The parents vow to build a church as an expiation, and it shall be called Kerna (B, C).

Färöe. 'Torkilds Riim, eller St. Catharine? Vise,' Lyngbye, Færøiske Qvæder, In this form of the story, as in the Icelandic versions which follow, the robbers are not the brothers of the maids. Torkild's two daughters sleep till the sun shines on their beds. Their father wakens them, and tells Katrine she is waited for at church. Katrine dresses herself splendidly, but does not disdain to saddle her own horse.

And since no knave was ready to help,
Katrine bridled the horse herself.

And since no knave was standing about,
Herself put the bit in her horse's mouth.

Icelandic. Five Icelandic versions, and the first stanza of two more, are given in Islenzk Fornkvæði, I, 108 ff, No 15, Vallara kvæði.'

The story is nearly the same as in the Färöe ballad. Two of Thorkell's daughters sleep till, after the sun is up (B, C). They wash and dress; they set out for church (C). On the heath they encounter a strolling man, A; a tall, large man, C, E; a horseman or knight, D. He greets them: "Why will ye not speak? Are ye come of elves, or of kings themselves?" A. [Are ye come of earls, or of beggar-churls? B]. They answer, We are not come of elves, nor of kings themselves; we are Thorkell's daughters, and serve Mary kirk. He asks, Will ye choose to lose your life, or shall I rather take you to wife ? The choice, they say, is hard: they would rather, die. He kills them and buries them. At night he goes to Thorkell's house, where Asa is alone. He knocks to be let in; Asa refuses; he draws the latch with his deft fingers (A, C, D). He offers Asa a silken sark to sleep with him [and a blue cloak to say nothing, A]. She asked to see the sark, and knew her sisters' work, begged him to wait a moment, went to her father, and told him that the murderer of his daughters was there. Thorkell dashed his harp to the floor [and kicked over the table, D, E]. The murderer in the morning was hanged like a dog, A, B. [Thorkell tore at his hair and cut him down with an elder-stock, C; they fought three days, and on the fourth the villain was hanged in a strap, E, the knight was hanging like a dog, D]. A miraculous light burned over the place where the maids had been buried, A 16, C 27, D 24, E 12. When their bodies were taken into the church, the bells rang of themselves, D.

Norwegian versions of this ballad have been obtained from tradition, but none as yet have been published.

"The mains and burn of Fordie, the banks of which are very beautiful," says Aytoun (I, 159), "lie about six miles to the east of Dunkeld." Tradition has connected the story with half a dozen localities in Sweden, and, as Professor Grundtvig informs me, with at least eight places in the different provinces of Denmark. The Kerna, church of the Swedish ballads, not far from Linköping (Afzelius), has been popularly supposed to derive its name from a Catharina, Karin, or Karna, killed by her own brother, a wood-robber, near its site. See Afzelius, ed. Bergström, II, 329 ff Danske Viser, ill, 444 f.

A is translated by Grundtvig, Engelske og skotske Folkeviser, No 34, p. 216, and, with some slight use of Aytoun, I, 160, by Rosa Warrens, Schottische Volkslieder der Vorzeit, No 18, p. 85. Danish A, by Prior, III, 252.