This is one of the cases in which a remarkably fine ballad has been worse preserved in Scotland than anywhere else. Without light from abroad we cannot fully understand even so much as we have saved, and with this light comes a keen regret for what we have lost.
A, from Buchan's Ballads of the North of Scotland, is found also in Motherwell's Manuscript, but without doubt was derived from Buchan. Though injured by the commixture of foreign elements, A has still much of the original story. B has, on the contrary, so little that distinctively and exclusively belongs to this story that it might almost as well have been put with the following ballad, 'Sheath and Knife,' as here. A third ballad, 'The Birth of Robin Hood,' preserves as much of the story as A, but in an utterly incongruous and very modern setting, being, like 'Erlinton,' C, forced into an absurd Robin Hood framework. The mixture of four-line with two-line stanzas in A of course comes from different ballads having been blended, but for all that, these ballads might have had the same theme. Stanzas 33-35, however, are such as we meet with in ballads of the 'Earl Brand' class, but not in those of the class to which 'Leesome Brand' belongs. In the English ballads, and nearly all the Danish, of the former class, there is at least a conversation between son and mother [father], whereas in the other the catastrophe excludes such a possibility. Again, the "unco land" in the first stanza, "where winds never blew nor cocks ever crew," is at least a reminiscence of the paradise depicted in the beginning of many of the versions of 'Ribold and Guldborg,' and stanza 4 of 'Leesome Brand' closely resembles stanza 2 of 'Earl Brand,' A.[foot-note] Still, the first and fourth stanzas suit one ballad as well as the other, which is not true of 33-35.
The name Leesome Brand may possibly be a corruption of Hildebrand, as Earl Brand almost certainly is; but a more likely origin is the Gysellannd of one of the kindred Danish ballads.
The white hind, stanzas 28, 30, is met with in no other ballad of this class, and, besides this, the last four stanzas are in no kind of keeping with what goes before, for the "young son" is spoken of as having been first brought home at some previous period. Grundtvig has suggested that the hind and the blood came from a lost Scottish ballad resembling The Maid Transformed into a Hind,' D. g. F, No 58. In this ballad a girl begs her brother, who is going hunting, to spare the little hind that "plays before his foot." The brother nevertheless shoots the hind, though not mortally, and sets to work to flay it, in which process he discovers his sister under the hind's hide. His sister tells him that she had been successively changed into a pair of scissors, a sword, a hare, a hind, by her step-mother, and that she was not to be free of the spell until she had drunk of her brother's blood. Her brother at once cuts his fingers, gives her some of his blood, and the girl is permanently restored to her natural shape, and afterwards is happily married. Stanzas similar to 36-41 of A and 12-16 of B will be found in the ballad which follows this, to which they are especially well suited by their riddling character; and I believe that they belong there, and not here. It is worthy of remark, too, that there is a hind in another ballad, closely related to No 16 'The Bonny Hind'), and that the hind in 'Leesome Brand' may, in some way not now explicable, have come from this. The confounding of 'Leesome Brand' with a ballad of the 'Bonny Hind' class would be paralleled in Danish, for in 'Redselille og Medelvold' T (and perhaps I, see Grundtvig's note, v, 237), the knight is the lady's brother.
The "auld son" in B, like the first bringing home of the young son in A 45, 47, shows how completely the proper story has been lost sight of. There should be no son of any description at the point at which this stanza comes in, and auld son should everywhere be young son. The best we can do, to make sense of stanza 3, is to put it after 8, with the understanding that woman and child are carried off for burial; though really there is no need to move them on that account. The shooting of the child is unintelligible in the mutilated state of the ballad. It is apparently meant to be an accident. Nothing of the kind occurs in other ballads of the class, and the divergence is probably a simple corruption.
The ballad which 'Leesome Brand' represents is preserved among the Scandinavian races under four forms.
Danish. I. 'Bolde Hr. Nilaus' Lön,' a single copy from a manuscript of the beginning of the 17th century: Grundtvig, v, 231, No 270. II. 'Redselille og Medelvold,' in an all but unexampled number of versions, of which some sixty are collated, and some twenty-five printed, by Grundtvig, most of them recently obtained from tradition, and the oldest a broadside of about the year 1770: Grundtvig, v, 234, No 271. III. Sönnens Sorg,' Grundtvig, 289, No 272, two versions only: A from the middle of the 16th century; B three hundred years later, previously printed in Berggreen's Danske Folkesange, I, No 83 (3d ed.). IV. 'Stalbroders Kvide,' Grundtvig, v, 301, No 273, two versions: A from the beginning of the 17th century, B from about 1570.
Swedish. II. A, broadside of 1776, reprinted in Grundtvig, No 271, v, 281, Bilag 1, and in Jamieson's Illustrations, p. 373 ff, with a translation. B, 'Herr Redevall,' Afzelius, II, 189, No 58, new ed. No 51. C, 'Krist' Lilla och Herr Tideman,' Arwidsson, I, 352, No 54 A. D, E, F, G, from Cavallius and Stephens' manuscript collection, first printed by Grundtvig, No 271, v, 282 ff, Bilag 2-5. H, 'Rosa lilla,' Eva Wigström, Folkvisor från Skåne, in Ur de nordiska Folkens Lif, of Artur Hazelius, p. 133, No 8. III. A single version, of date about 1650, 'Moder och Son,' Arwidsson, 15, No 70.
Norwegian. II. Six versions and a fragment, from recent tradition: A-E, G, first printed by Grundtvig, No 271, v, 284 ff, Bilag 6-11; F, 'Grivilja,' in Lindeman's Norske Fjeldmelodier, No 121. III. Six versions from recent tradition, A-F, first printed by Grundtvig, No 272, v, 297 ff, Bilag 1-6.
Icelandic. III. 'Sonar harmur,' Íslenzk Fornkvæði, I, 140 ff, No 17, three versions, A, B, C, the last, which is the oldest, being from late in the 17th century; also the first stanza of a fourth, D.
All the Scandinavian versions are in two-line stanzas save Danish 272 B, and A in part, and Icelandic 17 C, which are in four; the last, however, in stanzas of two couplets.
It will be most convenient to give first a summary of the story of 'Redselille og Medelvold,' and to notice the chief divergences of the other ballads afterwards. A mother and her daughter are engaged in weaving gold tissue. The mother sees milk running from the girl's breasts, and asks an explanation. After a slight attempt at evasion, the daughter confesses that she has been beguiled by a knight. The mother threatens both with punishment: he shall be hanged [burned, broken on the wheel, sent out of the country, i.e., sold into servitude], and she sent away [broiled on a gridiron, burned, drowned]. Some copies begin further back, with a stanza or two in which we are told that the knight has served in the king's court, and gained the favor of the king's daughter. Alarmed by her mother's threats, the maid goes to her lover's house at night, and after some difficulty in effecting an entrance (a commonplace, like the ill-boding milk above) informs him of the fate that awaits them. The knight is sufficiently prompt now, and bids her get her gold together while he saddles his horse. They ride away, with [or without] precautions against discovery, and come to a wood. Four Norwegian versions, A, B, C, G, and also two Icelandic versions, A, B, of 'Sønnens Sorg,' interpose a piece of water, and a difficulty in crossing, owing to the ferryman's refusing help or the want of oars; but this passage is clearly an infiltration from a different story. Arriving at the wood, the maid desires to rest a while. The customary interrogation does not fail, — whether the way is too long or the saddle too small. The knight lifts her off the horse, spreads his cloak for her on the grass, and she gives way to her anguish in such exclamations as "My mother had nine women: would that I had the worst of them!" "My mother would never have been so angry with me but she would have helped me in this strait!" Most of the Danish versions make the knight offer to bandage his eyes and render such service as a man may; but she replies that she would rather die than that man should know of woman's pangs. So Swedish H, nearly. Partly to secure privacy, and partly from thirst, she expresses a wish for water, and her lover goes in search of some. (This in nearly all the Danish ballads, and many of the others. But in four of the Norwegian versions of 'Sønnens Sorg' the lover is told to go and amuse himself, much as in our ballads.) When he comes to the spring or the brook, there sits a nightingale and sings. Two nightingales, a small bird, a voice from heaven, a small dwarf, an old man, replace the nightingale in certain copies, and in others there is nothing at all; but the great majority has a single nightingale, and, as Grundtvig points out, the single bird is right, for the bird is really a vehicle for the soul of the dead Redselille. The nightingale sings, "Redselille lies dead in the wood, with two sons [son and daughter] in her bosom." All that the nightingale has said is found to be true. According to Danish O and Swedish C, the knight finds the lady and a child, according to Swedish B and Norwegian A, B, C, the lady and two sons, dead. In Danish B, L (as also the Icelandic 'Sonar Harmur,' A, B, and Danish 'Stalbroders Kvide,' A) the knight digs a grave, and lays mother and children in it; he lays himself with them in A and M. It is not said whether the children are dead or living, and the point would hardly be raised but for what follows. In DanishD, P and Swedish F, it is expressly mentioned that the children are alive, and in Q, R, S, T, U, six copies of V, and Y, and also in 'Bolde Hr. Nilaus' Løn,' and in 'Sönnens Sorg,' Danish A, Norwegian A, C, E, the children are heard, or seem to be heard, shrieking from under the ground. Nearly all the versions make the knight run himself through with his sword, either immediately after the others are laid in the grave, or after he has ridden far and wide, because he cannot endure the cries of the children from under the earth. This would seem to be the original conclusion of the story; the horrible circumstance of the children being buried alive is much more likely to be slurred over or omitted at a later day than to be added.
We may pass over in silence the less important variations in the very numerous versions of 'Redselille and Medelvold,' nor need we be detained long by the other three Scandinavian forms of the ballad. Sønnens Sorg' stands in the same relation to 'Redselille and Medelvold' as 'Hildebrand and Hilde,' does to 'Ribold and Guldborg' (see p. 89 of this volume); that is, the story is told in the first person instead of the third. A father asks his son why he is so sad, Norwegian A, B, C, D, Icelandic A, B, C, D. Five years has he sat at his father's board, and never uttered a merry word. The son relates the tragedy of his life. He had lived in his early youth at the house of a nobleman, who had three daughters. He was on very familiar terms with all of them, and the youngest loved him. When the time came for him to leave the family, she proposed that he should take her with him, Danish B, Icelandic A, B, C [he makes the proposal in Norwegian C]. From this point the narrative is much the same as in 'Redselille and Medelvold,' and at the conclusion he falls dead in his father's arms [at the table], Norwegian A, B, D, Icelandic A. The mother takes the place of the father in Danish B and Swedish, and perhaps it is the mother who tells the story in English A, but the bad condition of the text scarcely enables us to say. Danish B and the Swedish copy have lost the middle and end of the proper story: there is no wood, no childbirth, no burial. The superfluous boat of some Norwegian versions of 'Redselille' reappears in these, and also in Icelandic A, B; it is overturned in a storm, and the lady is drowned.
'Stalbroders Kvide' differs from 'Sønnens Sorg' only in this: that the story is related to a comrade instead of father or mother.
'Bolde Hr. Nilaus' Løn,' which exists but in a single copy, has a peculiar beginning. Sir Nilaus has served eight years in the king's court without recompense. He has, however, gained the favor of the king's daughter, who tells him that she is suffering much on his account. If this be so, says Nilaus, I will quit the land with speed. He is told to wait till she has spoken to her mother. She goes to her mother and says: Sir Nilaus has served eight years; and had no reward; he desires the best that it is in your power to give. The queen exclaims, He shall never have my only daughter's hand! The young lady immediately bids Nilaus saddle his horse while she collects her gold, and from this point we have the story of Redselille.
Dutch. Willems, Oude vlaemsche Liederen, p. 482, No 231, 'De Ruiter en Mooi Elsje;' Hoffmann v. Fallersleben, Niederländische Volkslieder, 2d ed., p. 170, No 75: broadside of the date 1780.
A mother inquires into her daughter's condition, and learns that she is going with child by a trooper (he is called both 'ruiter' and 'landsknecht'). The conversation is overheard by the other party, who asks the girl whether she will ride with him or bide with her mother. She chooses to go with him, and as they ride is overtaken with pains. She asks whether there is not a house where she can rest. The soldier builds her a hut of thistles, thorns, and high stakes, and hangs his cloak over the aperture. She asks him to go away, and to come back when he hears a cry: but the maid was dead ere she cried. The trooper laid his head on a stone, and his heart brake with grief.
German. A, Simrock,.No 40, p. 92, 'Von Farbe so bleich,' from Bonn and Rheindorf, repeated in Mittler, No 194. The mother, on learning her daughter's plight, imprecates a curse on her. The maid betakes herself to her lover, a trooper, who rides off with her. They come to a cool spring, and she begs for a fresh drink, but, feeling very ill, asks if there is no hamlet near, from which she could have woman's help. The aid of the trooper is rejected in the usual phrase, and he is asked to go aside, and answer when called. If there should be no call, she will be dead. There was no call, and she was found to be dead, with two sons in her bosom. The trooper wrapped the children in her apron, and dug her grave with his sword. B, Reifferscheid, Westfälische Volkslieder, p. 106, 'Ach Wunder über Wunder,' from Bökendorf: much the same as to the story. C, Mittler, No 195, p. 175, 'Von Farbe so bleich,' a fragment of a copy from Hesse; Zuccalmaglio, p. 187, No 90, 'Die Waisen,' an entire copy, ostensibly from the Lower Rhine, but clearly owing its last fourteen stanzas to the editor. The trooper, in this supplements leaves the boys with his mother, and goes over seas. The boys grow up, and set out to find their father. In the course of their quest, they pass a night in a hut in a wood, and are overheard saying a prayer for their father and dead mother, by a person who announces herself as their maternal grandmother! After this it is not surprising that the father himself should turn up early the next morning. The same editor, under the name of Montanus, gives in Die deutschen Volksfeste, p. 45 f, a part of this ballad again, with variations which show his hand beyond a doubt. We are here informed that the ballad has above a hundred stanzas, and that the conclusion is that the grandmother repents her curse, makes her peace with the boys, and builds a convent.
French. Bujeaud, Chants et Chansons populaires des provinces de l'Ouest, A, 1, 198, B, 200, 'J'entends le rossignolet.' A. This ballad has suffered injury at the beginning and the end, but still preserves very well the chief points of the story. A lover has promised his mistress that after returning from a long absence he would take her to see his country. While traversing a wood she is seized with her pains. The aid of her companion is declined: "Cela n'est point votre metier." She begs for water. The lover goes for some, and meets a lark, who tells him that he will find his love dead, with a child in her arms. Two stanzas follow which are to no purpose. B. The other copy of this ballad has a perverted instead of a meaningless conclusion, but this keeps some traits that are wanting in A. It is a two-line ballad, with the nightingale in the refrain: "J'entends le rossignolet." A fair maid, walking with her lover, falls ill, and lies down under a thorn. The lover asks if he shall go for her mother. "She would not come: she has a cruel heart." Shall I go for mine? "Go, like the swallow!" He comes back and finds his love dead, and says he will die with his mistress. The absurd conclusion follows that she was feigning death to test his love.
The names in the Scandinavian ballads, it is remarked by Grundtvig, v, 242, 291, are not Norse, but probably of German derivation, and, if such, would indicate a like origin for the story. The man's name, for instance, in the Danish 'Sønnens Sorg,' A, Gysellannd, seems to point to Gisalbrand or Gisalbald, German names of the 8th or 9th century. There is some doubt whether this Gysellannd is not due to a corruption arising in the course of tradition (see Grundtvig, v, 302); but if the name may stand, it will account for our Leesome Brand almost as satisfactorily as .Hildebrand does for Earl Brand in No 7.
The passage in which the lady refuses male assistance during her travail — found as well in almost all the Danish versions of Redselille and Medelvold,' in the German and French, and imperfectly in Swedish D — occurs in several other English ballads, viz., 'The Birth of Robin Hood,' 'Rose the Red and White Lily,' 'Sweet Willie,' of Finlay's Scottish Ballads, 61, 'Burd Helen,' of Buchan, II, 30, 'Bonnie Annie,' No 23. Nearly the whole of the scene in the wood is in 'Wolfdietrich.' Wolfdietrich finds a dead man and a woman naked to the girdle, who is clasping the stem of a tree. The man, who was her husband, was taking her to her mother's house, where her first child was to be born, when he was attacked by the dragon Schadesam. She was now in the third day of her travail. Wolfdietrich, having first wrapped her in his cloak, offers his help, requesting her to tear a strip from her shift and bind it round his eyes. She rejects his assistance in this form, but sends him for water, which he brings in his helmet, but only to find the woman dead, with a lifeless child at her breast. He wraps mother and child in his mantle, carries them to a chapel, and lays them on the altar; then digs a grave with his sword, goes for the body of the man, and buries all three in the grave he has made. Grimm, Altdänische Heldenlieder, p. 508; Holtzmann, Der grosse Wolfdietrich, st.1587-1611; Amelung u. Jänicke,* Ortnit u. die Wolfdietriche, ii, 146, D, st. 51-75; with differences, i, 289, B, st. 842-848; mother and child surviving, i, 146, A, st. 562-578; Weber's abstract of the Heldenbuch, in Illustrations of Northern Antiquities, p. 119, 120.
'Herr Medelvold,' a mixed text of Danish II, Dauske Viser, No 156, is translated by Jamieson, Illustrations, p. 377; by Borrow, Romantic Ballads, p. 28 (very ill); and by Prior, No 101. Swedish, II, A, is translated by Jamieson, ib., p. 373.
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