Child Ballads - Narrative

Hind Horn

1. 'Hindhorn,' Motherwell's Manuscript, p. 106. Version A
2. 'Young Hyndhorn,' Motherwell's Manuscript, p. 418. Version B
3. 1. 'Young Hyn Horn,' Motherwell's Note-Book, p. 42.
   2. Motherwell's Manuscript, p. 413.
   Version C
4. 'Young Hynhorn,' Cromek's Select Scotish Songs, II, 204. Version D
5. 'Hynd Horn,' Motherwell's Manuscript, p. 91. Version E
6. Lowran Castle, or the Wild Boar of Curridoo: with other Tales. By R. Trotter, Dumfries, 1822. Version F
7. 'Hynde Horn,' Kinloch's Ancient Scottish Ballads, p. 135. Version G
8. 'Hynd Horn,' Buchan's Ballads of the North of Scotland, II, 268. Version H

A defective copy of this ballad was printed in Cromek's Select Scottish Songs, Ancient and Modern, 1810 (D). A fragment, comprising the first half of the story, was inserted in "Lowran Castle, or the Wild Boar of Curridoo: with other Tales," etc., by Robert Trotter, Dumfries, 1822^[foot-note] (F). A complete copy was first given in Kinloch's Ancient Scottish Ballads, 1827 (G); another, described by the editor as made up from Cromek's fragment and two copies from recitation, in Motherwell's Minstrelsy, p. 36,^[foot-note] later in the same year; and a third, closely resembling Kinloch's, in Buchan's Ballads of the North of Scotland, in 1828 (H). Three versions complete, or nearly so, and a fragment of a fourth are now printed for the first time, all from Motherwell's manuscripts (A, B, C, E).

The stanza about the auger bore [wimble bore], B 1, F 3, H 4, is manifestly out of place. It is found in 'The Whummil Bore' (see further on), and may have slipped into 'Hind Horn' by reason of its following, in its proper place, a stanza beginning, "Seven lang years I hae served the king:" cf. F 2, H 3.

G 17, 18, 21, 22, which are not intelligible in their present connection, are perhaps, as well as G 16, H 18-20, borrowed from some Robin Hood ballad, in which a change is made with a beggar.

The noteworthy points in the story of Hind Horn are these. Hind Horn has served the king seven years (D, F), and has fallen in love with his daughter. She gives Hind Horn a jewelled ring: as long as the stone keeps its color, he may know that she is faithful; but if it changes hue, he may ken she loves another man. The king is angry (D), and Hind Horn goes to sea [is sent, D]. He has been gone seven years, E, F [seven years and a day, B], when, looking on his ring, he sees that the stone is pale and wan, A-H. He makes for the land at once, and, meeting an old beggar, asks him for news. No news but the king's daughter's wedding: it has lasted nine days [two and forty, A], and she will not go into the bride-bed till she hears of Hind Horn, E. Hind Horn changed cloaks and other gear with the beggar, and when he came to the king's gate asked for a drink in Horn's name,^[foot-note] A, B, D. The bride herself came down, and gave him a drink out of her own hand, A, B, C, G, H. He drank out the drink and dropped in the ring.

'O gat ye 't by sea, or gat ye 't by lan,
Or gat ye 't aff a dead man's han?'

So she asked; and he answered:

'I gat na 't by sea, I gat na 't by lan,
But I gat it out of your own han.' D 14.

I got na 't by sea, I got na 't by land,
Nor got I it aff a drownd man's hand;

'But I got it at my wooing,
And I'll gie it at your wedding.' G 29, 30.

The bride, who had said,

'I'll go through nine fires so hot,
But I'll give him a drink for Young Hynhorn's sake,' B 16,

is no less ready now:

'I'll tak the red gowd frae my head,
And follow you and beg my bread.

I'll tak the red gowd frae my hair,
And follow you for evermair.' H 31, 32.

But Hind Horn let his cloutie cloak fall, G, H, and told her,

'Ye need na leave your bridal gown,
For I'll make ye ladie o many a town.'

The story of Horn, of which this ballad gives little more than the catastrophe, is related at full in

I. 'King Horn,' a gest in about 1550 short verses, preserved in three manuscripts; the oldest regarded as of the second half of the 13th century, or older; the others put at 1300 and a little later. All three have been printed: (1.) By Michel, Horn et Rimenhild, p. 259 ff, Bannatyne Club, 1845; J.R. Lumby, Early English Text Society, 1866; and in editions founded on Lumby's text, by Mätzner, Altenglische Sprachproben, p. 270 ff, and later by Wissmann, Quellen u. Forschungen, No 45. (2.) By Horstmann, Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprachen, 1872, L, 39 ff. (3.) By Ritson, A.E. Metrical Romanceës, II, 91 ff.

II. 'Horn et Rymenhild,' a romance in about 5250 heroic verses, preserved likewise in three manuscripts; the best in the Public Library of the university of Cambridge, and. of the 14th century.

III. 'Horn Childe and Maiden Rimnild,' from a manuscript of the 14th century, in not quite 100 twelve-line stanzas: Ritson, Metrical Romanceës, III, 282 ff; Michel, p. 341 ff.

Horn, in the old English gest, is son of Murry [Allof], king of Suddenne. He is a youth of extraordinary beauty, and has twelve comrades, of whom Athulf and Fikenild are his favorites. One day, as Murry was out riding, he came upon fifteen ships of Saracens, just arrived. The pagans slew the king, and insured themselves, as they thought, against Horn's future revenge by putting him and his twelve aboard a vessel without sail or rudder; but "the children" drove to shore, unhurt, on the coast of Westerness. The king, Ailmar, gave them a kind reception, and committed them to Athelbrus, his steward, to be properly brought up. Rymenhild, the king's daughter, fell in love with Horn, and having, with some difficulty, prevailed upon Athelbrus to bring him to her bower, offered herself to him as his wife. It were no fair wedding, Horn told her, between a thrall and a king, — a speech which hurt Rymenhild greatly; and Horn was so moved by her grief that he promised to do all she required, if she would induce the king to knight him. This was done the next day, and Horn at once knighted all his comrades. Rymenhild again sent for Horn, and urged him now to make her his wife. But Horn said he must first prove his knighthood: if he came back alive, he would then marry her. upon this Rymenhild gave him a ring, set with stones of such virtue that he could never be slain if he looked on it and thought of his leman. The young knight bad the good fortune to fall in immediately with a ship full of heathen bounds, and by the aid of his ring killed a hundred of the best of them. The next day he paid Rymenhild a visit, and found her drowned in grief on account of a bad dream. She had cast her net in the sea, and a great fish had broken it: she weened she should lose the fish that she would choose. Horn strove to comfort her, but could not conceal his apprehension that trouble was brewing. The fish proved to be, Fikenild, Horn's much cherished friend. He told Ailmar of the intimacy with Rymenhild, and asserted that Horn meant to kill the king as well as marry the princess. Ailmar was very angry (v. 724, Wissmann), and much grieved, too. He found the youth in his daughter's bower, and ordered him to quit the land anon. Horn saddled his horse and armed himself, then went back to Rymenhild, and told her that he was going to a strange land for seven years: if, after that, he neither came nor sent word, she might take a husband. He sailed a good way eastward (v. 799) to Ireland, and, landing, met two princes, who invited him to take service with their father. The king, Thurston, welcomed him, and had soon occasion to employ him; for at Christmas came into court a giant, with a message from pagans newly arrived. They proposed that one of them should fight three Christians: If your three slay our one, Let all this land be your own; If our one oercomes your three, All this land then ours shall be.' Horn scorned to fight on such terms; he alone would undertake three of the hounds; and so he did. In the course of a hard fight it came out that these were the very heathen that had slain King Murry. Horn looked on his ring and thought on Rymenhild, then fell on his foes. Not a man of them escaped; but King Thurston lost many men in the fight, among them his two sons. Having now no heir, he offered Horn his daughter Reynild and the succession. Horn replied that he had not earned such a reward yet. He would serve the king further; and when he asked for his daughter, he hoped the king would not refuse her.

Seven years Horn stayed with King Thurston, and to Rymenhild neither sent nor went. A sorry time it was for her, and worst at the end, for King Modi of Reynis asked her in marriage, and her father consented. The wedding was to be in a few days. Rymenhild despatched messengers to every land, but Horn heard nothing, till one day, when he was going out to shoot, he encountered one of these, and learned how things stood. He sent word to his love not to be troubled; he would be there betimes. But, alas, the messenger was drowned on his way back, and Rymenhild, peering out of her door for a ray of hope, saw his body washed up by the waves. Horn now made a clean breast to Thurston, and asked for help. This was generously accorded, and Horn set sail for Westerness. He arrived not too early on, the day of the wedding, — "ne might he come no later!" — left his men in a wood, and set off for Ailmar's conrt alone. He met a palmer, and asked his news. The palmer had come from a bridal; a wedding of maid Rymenhild, who wept and would not be married, because she had a husband, though he was out of the land. Horn changed clothes with the palmer, put on the sclavin, took scrip and staff, blackened his skin and twisted his lip, and presented himself at the king's gate. The porter would not let him in; Horn kicked open the wicket, threw the porter over the bridge, made his way into the hall, and sat down in the beggars' row. Rymenhild was weeping as if she were out of her wits, but after meat she rose to give all the knights and squires drink from a horn which she bare: such was the custom. Horn called to her:

The French romance contains very nearly the same story, extended, by expansions of various sorts, to about six times the length of King Horn. It would be out of place to notice other variations than those which relate to the story preserved in the ballads. Rimild offers Horn a ring when she first avows her love. He will not take it then, but accepts a second tender, after his first fight. When he is accused to the king, he offers to clear himself by combat with heavy odds, but will not submit, king's son as he is, to pnrgation by oath. The king says, then he" may quit the land and go — to Norway, if he will. Horn begs Rimild to maintain her love for him seven years. If he does not come then, he will send her word to act thereafter at her pleasure. Rimild exchanges the ring she had previously given him for one set with a sapphire, wearing which faithfully he need not fear death by water nor fire, battle nor tourney (vv 2051-8). He looks at this ring when he fights with the pagan that had killed his father, and it fires his heart to. extraordinary exploits (3166 ff). Having learned through a friend, who had long been seeking him, that Rimild's father is about to marry her to a young king (Modun), Horn returns to Brittany with a large force. He leaves his men in a woody place, and goes out alone on horseback for news; meets a palmer, who tells him that the marriage is to take place that very day; gives the palmer his fine clothes in exchange for sclavin, staff and scrip, forces his way into the city, and is admitted to the banquet hall with the beggars. After the guests had eaten (4152 ff), Rimild filled a splendid cup with piment, presented it first a sun dru, and then, with her maids, served the whole company. As she was making her fifth round, Horn pulled her by the sleeve, and reproached her with attending only to the rich. "Your credit would be greater should you serve us." She set a handsome cup before him, but he would not drink. "Corn apelent Horn li Engleis," he said. "If, for the love of him who bore that name, you would give me the same horn that you offered your ami, I would share it with you." All but fainting, Rimild gave him the horn. He threw in his ring, even that which she had given him at parting, drank out half, and begged her to drink by the love of him whom he had named. In drinking, she sipped the ring into her mouth, and she saw at once what it was (4234). "I have found a ring," said she. "If it is yours, take it. Blest be he to whom I gave it: if you know aught of him, conceal it not. If you are Horn, it were a great sin not to reveal yourself." Horn owned that the ring was his, but denied knowledge of the man she spake of. For himself, he had been reared in that land, and by service had come into possession of a hawk, which, before taming it, he had put in a cage: that was nigh seven years since: he had come now to see what it amounted to. If it should prove to be as good as when he left it, he would carry it away with him; but if its feathers were ruffled and broken, he would have nothing to do with it. At this, Rimild broke into a laugh, and cried, " Horn, 't is you, and your hawk has been safely kept!"^[foot-note] She would go with him or kill herself. Horn saw that she had spoken truth, but, to try her yet further, said he was indeed Horn, whom she had loved, but he had come back with nothing: why should she follow a poor wretch who could not give her a gown to her back? "Little do you know me," was her reply. "I can bear what you bear, and there is no king in the East for whom I would quit you."

'Horn Childe and Maiden Rimnild,' with many diversities of its own as to details, is more like the French than the English romance as to the story, and, on the other hand, has one or two resemblances to the ballads which they both lack. Rimnild's father, maddened by the traitor Wikel's false information, beats her till she bleeds, and threatens to slay Horn. Rimnild, expecting her lover to be at least exiled, assures Horn that she will marry no other man for seven years. The king, who had shut himself up till his first wrath was past, tells Horn, when he next comes into his presence, that if he is found in the land on the morrow, he shall be drawn with horses and hanged. Rimnild, at parting, gives him a ring, with these words:

That the lay or gest of King Horn is a far more primitive poem than the French romance, and could not possibly be derived from it, will probably be plain to any one who will make even a hasty comparison of the two; and that the contrary opinion should have been held by such men as .Warton and Tyrwhitt must have been the result of a general theory, not of a particular examination.^[foot-note] There is, on the other hand, no sufficient reason for supposing that the English lay is the source of the other two poems. Nor do the special approximations of the ballads to the romance of Horn Child oblige us to conclude that these, or any of them, are derived from that poem. The particular resemblances are the discoloration of the ring, the elopement with the bride, in C, G, H (which is only prepared for, but not carried out, in Horn Child), and the agreement between the couplet just cited from Horn Child,

Now is Rimnild tuiis wedde,
Horn brouȝt hir to his bedde,

and the last stanza of A, B, C:

The bridegroom he had wedded the bride,
But Young Hind Horn he took her to bed. (A)

The likeness evinces a closer affinity of the oral traditions with the later English romance than with the earlier English or the French, but no filiation. And were filiation to be accepted, there would remain the question of priority. It is often assumed, without a misgiving, that oral tradition must needs be younger than anything *that was committed to writing some centuries ago; but this requires in each case to be made out; there is certainly no antecedent probability of that kind.^[foot-note]

Two Scandinavian ballads, as Dr. Prior has remarked, seem to have been at least suggested by the romances of Horn. (1.) 'Unge Hr. Tor og Jomfru Tore,' Grundtvig, No 72, II, 263, translated by Prior, III, 151. Of this there are two traditional versions: A from a manuscript of the sixteenth century, B from one of the seventeenth. They agree in story. In A, Tor asks Sølffuermord how long she will wait for him. Nine years, she answers, if she can do so without angering her friends. He will be satisfied with eight. Eight have passed: a family council is held, and it is decided that she shall not have Young Tor, but a certain rich count. Her father "gives her away" that same day. The lady goes up to a balcony and looks seaward. Everybody seems to be coming home but her lover. She begs her brother to ride down to the shore for her. Tor is just coming in, hails the horseman, and eagerly asks how are the maids in the isle. The brother tells him that Ms maid has waited eight years, and is even now drinking her bridal, but with tears. Tor takes his harp and chess-board, and plays ontside the bridal hall till the bride hears and knows him. He then enters the hall, and asks if there is anybody that can win a game of chess. The father replies, Nobody but Sølffuermord, and she sits a bride at the board. The mother indulgently suggests that the midsummer day is long, and the bride might well try a game. The bride seeks an express sanction of her father, who lessons her the livelong day, being suspicious of Tor, but towards evening consents to her playing a little while, — not long. Tor wins the first game, and must needs unpack his heart in a gibing parable, ending

'Full hard is gold to win,
And so is a trothless quean.'

She wins the next game, takes up the parable, and says

' Many were glad their faith to hold,
Were their lot to be controlled.'

They are soon at one, and resolve to fly. They slip away, go aboard Tor's ship, and put off. The bride's parents get information, and the "mother, who is a professor of the black art, raises a storm which she means shall sink them both. No one can steer the ship but the bride. She stands at the helm, with her gold crown on, while her lover is lying seasick on the deck, and she brings the craft safe into Norway, where a second wedding is celebrated.

(2.) The other ballad is 'Herr Lovmand og Herr Thor,' Syv, iv, No 68, Danske Viser, iv, 180, No 199, translated by Prior, n, 442. Lovmand, having betrothed Ingelil, asks how long she will be his maid. "Eight years, if I may," she says. This term has elapsed; her brothers consult, and give her to rich Herr Thor. They drink the bridal for five days; for nine days; she will not go to bed. On the evening of the tenth they begin to use force. She begs that she may first go to the look-out up-stairs. From there she sees ships, great and small, and the sails which her own hands have made for her lover. Her brother goes down to the sea, as in the other ballad, and has a similar interview. Lovmand has the excuse of having been sick seven years. He borrows the brother's horse, flies faster than a bird, and the torch is burning at the door of the bride's house when he arrives. Thor is reasonable enough to give up the bride, and to accept Lovmand's sister.

Certain points in the story of Horn — the long absence, the sudden return, the appearance under disguise at the wedding feast, and the dropping of the ring into a cup of wine obtained from the bride — repeat themselves in a great number of romantic tales. More commonly it is a husband who leaves his wife for seven years, is miraculously informed on the last day that she is to be remarried on the morrow, and is restored to his home in the nick of time, also by superhuman means. Horn is warned to go back, in the ballads and in Horn Child, by the discoloration of his ring, but gets home as he tan; this part of the story is slurred over in a way that indicates a purpose to avoid a supernatural expedient. Very prominent among the stories referred to is that of Henry of Brunswick [Henry the Lion, Reinfrid of Brunswick], and this may well be put first, because it is preserved in Scandinavian popular ballads.^[foot-note]

(1.) The latest of these, a Swedish ballad, from a collection made at the end of the last century, 'Hertig Henrik,' Arwidsson, No 168, 422, represents Duke Henry as telling his wife that he is minded to go off for seven years (he says not whither, but it is of course to the East); should he stay eight or nine, she may marry the man she fancies. He cuts a ring in two; gives her one half and keeps the other. He is made captive, and serves a heathen lord and lady seven years, drawing half the plough, "like another horse." His liberation is not accounted for, but he was probably set free by his mistress, as in the ballad which follows. He gets possession of an excellent sword, and uses it on an elephant who is fighting with a lion. The grateful lion transports the duke to his own country while he is asleep. A herdsman, of whom he asks food, recommends him to go to the Brunswick mansion, where there is a wedding, and Duke Henry's former spouse is the bride. When Henry comes to the house, his daughter is standing without; be asks food for a poor pilgrim. She replies that she has never heard of a pilgrim taking a lion about with him. But they give him drink, and the bride, pro more, drinks out of the same bowl, and finds the half ring in the bottom. The bride feels in her pocket and finds her half,^[foot-note] and the two, when thrown upon a table, run together and make one ring.

(2.) The Danish ballad^[foot-note] (Grundtvig, No 114, B, from a 17th century manuscript), relates that Duke Henry, in consequence of a dream, took leave of his wife, enjoining her to wait to the eighth year, and, if then he did not return, marry whom she liked. In the course of his fights with the heathen, Henry was made captive, and had to draw the harrow and plough, like a beast. One day (during his lord's absence, as we learn from A) the heathen lady whom he served set him free. He had many adventures, and in one of them killed a panther who was pressing a lion hard, for which service the lion followed him like a dog. The duke then happened upon a hermit, who told him that his wife was to be married the next day, but he was to go to sleep, and not be concerned. He laid his head on a stone in the heathen land, and woke in a trice to hear German speech from a herdsman's mouth. The herdsman confirmed what the hermit had said: the duchess was to be married on the morrow. The duke went to the kitchen as a pilgrim, and sent word to the lady that he wished to drink to her. The duchess, surprised at this freedom, summoned him into her presence. The verses are lost in which the cup should be given the pilgrim and returned to the lady. When she drank off the wine that was left, a half ring lay in the glass.

Danish A, though of the 16th century, does not mention the ring.

(3.) A Flemish broadside, which may originally have been of the 15th century, relates the adventures of the Duke of Brunswick in sixty-five stanzas of four long lines: reprinted in von der Hagen's Germania, VIII, 359, and Hoffmann's Niederländische Volkslieder, No 2, p. 6; Coussemaker, No 47, p. 152; abridged and made over, in Willems, O. v. L., p. 251, No 107. The duke, going to war, tells his wife to marry again if he stays away seven years. She gives him half of her ring. Seven years pass, and the duke, being then in desperate plight in a wilderness, is taken off by a ship; by providential direction, no doubt, though at first it does not so appear. For the fiend is aboard, who tells him that his wife is to be married to-morrow, and offers, for his soul, to carry him to his palace in his sleep before day. The duke, relying on heaven and his lion, professes to accept the terms: he is to be taken to his palace in his sleep. The lion rouses his master at the right time, and the fiend is baffled. The duke goes to the marriage feast, and sends a message to the bride that he desires a drink from her in memory of her lord. They take him for a beggar, but the lady orders him wine in a gold cup. The cup goes back to her with the duke's half ring in it. She cries, "It is my husband!" joins her half to the one in the cup, and the two adhere firmly.

(4.) A German poem of the 15th century, by Michel Wyssenhere, in ninety-eight stanzas of seven lines, first printed by Massmann, Denkmæler deutscher Sprache mid Literatur, p. 122, and afterwards by Erlach, ii, 290, and elsewhere. The Lord of Brunswick receives an impression in a dream that he ought to go to the Holy Sepulchre. He cuts a ring in two, and gives his wife one half for a souvenir, but fixes no time for his absence, and so naturally says nothing about her taking another husband. He has the adventures which are usual in other versions of the story, and at last finds himself among the Wild Hunt (das wöden her), and obliges one of the company, by conjurations, to tell him how it is with his wife and children. The spirit informs him that his wife is about to marry another man. He then constrains the spirit to transport him and his lion to his castle. This is done on the same terms as in the Flemish poem, and the lion wakes his master. His wife offers him drink; he lets his half ring drop in the glass, and, upon the glass being returned to the lady, she takes out the token, finds it like her half, and cries out that she has recovered her dear husband and lord.

(5.) Henry the Lion, a chap-book printed in the 16th century, in one hundred and four stanzas of eight short verses; reprinted in Büsching's Volkssagen, Märchen and Legenden, p. 213 ff, and (modernized) by Simrock in the first volume of Die deutschen Volksbücher. The hero goes out simply in quest of adventures, and, having lost his ship and all his companions, is floating on a raft with his lion, when the devil comes to him and tells him that his wife is to remarry. A compact is made, and the devil balked, as before. Though we were not so informed at the beginning, it now turns out that the duke had given a half ring to the duchess seven years before, and had bidden her take a second husband if he did not come back in that time. The duke sends a servant to beg a drink of wine of his wife, and returns the cup, as in (3), (4).

(6.) A ballad in nine seven-line stanzas, supposed to be by a Meistersinger, preserved in broadsides of about 1550 and 1603, Böhme, No 5, p. 30, Erk's Wunderhorn, iv, 111. (7.) Hans Sachs's Historia,' 1562, in two hundred and four verses, Works, ed. 1578, Buch iv, Theil ii, Blatt lvii^bulviii^b.^[foot-note] (8.) A Meistersingerlied of the end of the 16th century, in three twenty-line stanzas, printed in Idunna u. Hermode for March 27, 1813 (appended to p. 64), and after this, with changes, in Kretzschmer, 17, No 5.u These three agree with the foregoing as to the ring.

(9.) Reinfrid von Braunschweig, c. 1300, ed. Bartsch, 1871. Reinfrid is promised by the Virgin, who appears to him thrice in vision, that he shall have issue if he will go over sea to fight the heathen. He breaks a ring which his wife had given him, and gives her one half, vv. 14,906-11. If he dies, she is to marry, for public reasons, vv. 14,398-407; but she is not to believe a report of his death unless she receives his half of the ring back, vv. 14,782816, 15,040-049. The latter part of the romance not being extant, we do not know the conclusion, but a variation as to the use made of the ring is probable.^[foot-note]

The story of Reinfrit is also preserved in a Bohemian prose chap-book printed before 1565. This prose is clearly a poem broken up, and it is believed that the original should be placed in the first half of the 14th century, or possibly at the end of the 13th. The hero returns, in pilgrim's garb, after seven years' absence, to find his wife about to be handed over by her father to another prince. He lets his ring fall into a cup, and goes away; his wife recognizes the ring, and is reunited to him. The story has passed from the Bohemian into Russian and Magyar. Feifalik, Sitzungsberichte der phil.-hist. Classe der Wiener Akademie, XXTX, 83 ff, the ring at p. 92; XXXII, 322 ff.

Similar use is made of the ring in other German romances. (1.) 'Der edle Moringer' (manuscript of 14th century) asks his wife to wait seven years for him, while he visits the land of St. Thomas. He is warned by an angel, at the expiration of that period, that he will lose her if he does not go back, bewails himself to his patron, and is conveyed home in a sleep. He begs an alms at his castle-gate in the name of God, St. Thomas, and the noble Moringer; is admitted to his wife's presence; sings a lay describing his own case, which moves the lady much; throws into a beaker of wine, which she sets before him, the ring by which she was married to him, sends the cup back to her, and is recognized. Böhme, No 6, p. 32; Uhland, No 298, p. 773. (2.) In the older Hildebrandslied, which is of the 14th century, or earlier, the hero, returning after an absence of thirty-two years, drops his ring into a cup of wine presented to him by his wife. Böhme, No 1, p. 1; uhland, No 132, p. 330. (3.) Wolfdietrich drops Ortnit's ring into a cup of wine sent him by Liebgart, who has been adjudged to the Graf von Biterne in consideration of his having, as he pretended, slain the dragon. The cup is returned to the empress, the ring identified, the pretension refuted, and Liebgart given to Ortnit's avenger. Wolfdietrich B, ed. Jänicke, I,280 ff, stanzas 767785. (4.) King Rother (whose history has passages of the strongest resemblance to Horn's), coming to retrieve his wife, who has been kidnapped and carried back to her father, lands below Constantinople, at a woody and hilly place, and assumes a pilgrim's disguise. On his way to the city he meets a man who tells him that Ymelot of Babylon has invaded Greece, and taken Constantin, his wife's father, prisoner; and that Constantin, to save his life, has consented to give his daughter to the heathen king's son. Rother steals into the hall, and even under the table at which the royal party are sitting, and contrives to slip his ring into the hand of his distressed young queen, who, thus assured of his presence, immediately recovers her spirits. Massmann, Deutsche Gedichte des zwœlften Jahrhunderts, Theil ii, p. 213, vv. 3687-3878. One of the best and oldest stories of the kind we are engaged with is transmitted by Cæsarius of Heisterbach in his Dialogus Miraculorum, of the first quarter of the 13th century. Gerard, a soldier living in Holenbach ("his grandchildren are still alive, and there is hardly a man in the town who does not know about this"), being, like Moringer, devoted to St. Thomas of India, was impelled to visit his shrine. He broke a ring and gave one half to his wife, saying, Expect me back in five years, and marry whom you wish if I do not come then. The journey, which would be long enongh any way, was providentially protracted. He reached the shrine at last, and said his prayers, and then remembered that that was the last day of his fifth year. Alas, my wife will marry again, he thought; and quite right he was, for the wedding was even then preparing. A devil, acting under the orders of St Thomas, set Gerard down at his own door. He found his wife supping with her second partner, and dropped his half ring into her cup. She took it out, fitted it to the half which had been given her, rushed into his arms, and bade good-by to the new bridegroom. Ed. Strange, II, 131.

Another of the most remarkable tales of this class is exquisitely told by Boccaccio in the Decamerone, G. x, N. ix. Messer Torello, going to the crusade, begs his wife to wait a year, a month, and a day before she marries again. The lady assures him that she will never be another man's wife; but he replies that a woman young, beautiful, and of high family, as she is, will not be allowed to have her way. With her parting embrace she gives. him a ring from her finger, saying, If I die before I see you again, remember me when you look on this. The Christians were wasted by an excessive mortality, and those who escaped the ravages of disease fell into the hands of Saladin, and were imprisoned by him in various cities, Torello in Alexandria. Here he was recognized by Saladin, whom he had entertained with the most delicate and splendid hospitality a few months before, when the soldan was travelling through Italy in disguise. Saladin's return for this courtesy was so magnificent as almost to put Lombardy out of Torello's head,^[foot-note] and besides he trusted that his wife had been informed of his safety by a letter which he had sent. This was not so, however, and the death of another Torello was reported in Italy as his, in consequence of which his supposed widow was solicited in marriage, and was obliged to consent to take another husband after the time should have expired which she had promised to wait. A week before the last day, Torello learned that the ship which carried his letter had been wrecked, and the thonght that his wife would now marry again drove him almost mad. Saladin extracted from him the cause of his distress, and promised that he should yet be at home before the time was out, which Torello, who had heard that such things had often been done, was ready to believe. And in fact, by means of one of his necromancers, Saladin caused Torello to be transported to Pavia in one night — the night before the new nuptials. Torello appeared at the banquet the next day in the guise of a Saracen, under the escort of an uncle of his, a churchman, and at the right moment sent word to the lady that it was a custom in his country for a bride to send her cup filled with wine to any stranger who might be present, and for him to drink half and cover the cnp, and for her to drink the rest. To this the lady graciously assented. Torello drank out most of the wine, dropped in the ring which his wife had given him when they parted, and covered the cup. The lady, upon lifting the cover, saw the ring, knew her husband, and, upsetting the table in her ecstasy, threw herself into Torello's arms.

Tales of this description still maintain themselves in popular tradition. 'Der Ring ehelicher Treue,' Gottschalk, Deutsche Volksmärchen, II, 135, relates how Kuno von Falkenstein, going on a crusade, breaks his ring and gives one half to his wife, begging her to wait seven years before she marries again. He has the adventures of Henry of Brunswick, with differences, and, like Moringer, sings a lay describing his own case. The new bridegroom hands him a cup; he drops in his half ring, and passes the cup to the bride. The two halves join of themselves.^[foot-note] Other examples, not without variations and deficiencies, in details, are afforded by Der getheilte Trauring,' Schmitz, Sagen u. Legenden des Eifler Volkes, p. 82; 'Bodman,' Uhland, in Pfeiffer's Germania, IV, 73-76; 'Graf Hubert von Kalw,' Meier, Deutsche Sagen, u.a.w., aus Schwaben, p. 332, No 369, Grimms, Deutsche Sagen, No 524; 'Der Bärenhäuter,' Grimms, K. u. H. märchen, No 101; 'Berthold von Neuhaus,' in Kern's Schlesische Sagen-Chronik, p. 93.

A story of the same kind is interwoven with an exceedingly impressive adventure related of Richard Sans-Peur in Les Chroniques de Normandie, Rouen, 1487, chap. lvii, cited in Michel, Chronique des Ducs de Normandie par Benoit, II, 336 ff. A second is told of Guillaume Martel, seigneur de Bacqueville; still others of a seigneur Gilbert de Lomblon, a comrade of St. Louis in his first crusade. Amélie de Bosquet, La Normandie romanesque et merveilleuse, pp. 465-68, 470.

A Picard ballad, existing in two versions, partly cited by Rathery in the Moniteur Universel for August 26, 1853, tells of a Sire de Créqui, who, going beyond seas with his sovereign, breaks his ring and gives half to his young wife; is gone ten years, and made captive by the Turks, who condemn him to death on account of his adhesion to Christ; and is transported to his chateau on the eve of the day of his doom. This very day his wife is to take another husband, sorely against her will. Cre'qui appears in the rags of a beggar, and legitimates himself by producing his half of the ring (which, in a way not explained by Rathery, has been brought back by a swan).

'Le Retour du Mari,' Puymaigre, Chants populaires messins, p. 20, has also some traits of ballads of this class. A bridegroom has to go on a campaign the very day of his nuptials. The campaign lasts seven years, and the day of his return his wife is about to re-marry. He is invited to the wedding supper, and towards the close of it proposes to play cards to see who shall have the bride. The guests are surprised. The soldier says he will have the bride without winning her at cards or dice, and, turning to the lady, asks, Where are the rings I gave you at your wedding seven years ago? She will go for them; and here the story breaks off.^[foot-note]

The same hard fortune is that of Costantino, a young Albanian, who is called to the service of his king three days after his marriage. He gives back her ring to his wife, and tells her he must go to the wars for nine years. Should he not return in nine years and nine days, he bids her marry. The young wife says nothing, waits her nine years and nine days, and then, since she is much sought for, her father wishes her to marry. She says nothing, again, and they prepare for the bridal. Costantino, sleeping in the king's palace, has a bad dream, which makes him heave a sigh that comes to his sovereign's ear. The king summons all his soldiers, and inquires who heaved that sigh. Costantino confesses it was he, and says it was because his wife was marrying. The king orders him to take the swiftest horse and make for his home. Costantino meets his father, and learns that his dream is true, presses on to the church, arrives at the door at the same time as the bridal procession, and offers himself for a bride's-man. When they come to the exchange of rings, Costantino contrives that his ring shall remain on the bride's finger. She knows the ring; her tears burst forth. Costantino declares himself as having been already crowned with the lady.^[foot-note] Camarda, Appendice al Saggio di Grammatologia, etc., 90-97, a Calabrian-Albanese copy. There is a Sicilian, but incomplete, in Vigo, Canti popolari siciliani, p. 342 ff, ed. 1857, p. 695 ff, ed. 1870-74.

With this belongs a ballad, very common in Greece, which, however, has for the most part lost even more of what was in all probability the original catastrophe.' 'Αναγνωρισμός,' Chasiotis, Popular Songs of Epirus, p. 88, No 27, comes nearer the common story than other versions.^[foot-note] A man who had been twelve years a slave after being a bridegroom of three days, dreams that his wife is marrying, runs to the cellar, and begins to sing dirges. The king hears, and is moved. "If it is one of the servants, increase his pay; if a slave, set him free." The slave tells his story (in three lines); the king bids him take a swift gray. The slave asks the horses, which is a swift gray. Only one answers, an old steed with forty wounds. "I am a swift gray; tie two or three handkerchiefs around your head, and tie yourself to my back!"^[foot-note] He comes upon his father pruning the vineyard. "Whose sheep are those feeding in the meadows?" "My lost son's." He comes to his mother. " What bride are they marrying?" "My lost son's." "Shall I get to them in church while they are crowning?" "If you have a fast horse, you will find them crowning; if you have a bad horse, you will find them at table." He finds them at church, and calls out, A bad way ye have: why do ye not bring out the bride, so that strangers may give her the cup? A good way we have, they answer, we who bring out the bride, and strangers give her the cup. Then he takes out his ring, while he is about to present the cup to the bride. The bride can read; she stands and reads (his name), and bids the company be gone, for her mate has come, the first crowned.

In other cases we find the hero in prison. He was put in for thirty days; the keys are lost, and he stays thirty years. Legrand, p. 326, No 145; Νεοελληνικὰ Ἀνάλεκτα, I, 85, No 19. More frequently he is a galley slave: Zambelios, p. 678, No 103 = Passow, No 448; Tommaseo, ill, 152 = Passow, No 449; Sakellarios, Κυπριακά, III, 37, No 13: Νεοελληνικὰ Ἀνάλεκτα, I, 86, No 20; Jeannaraki, ᾌσματα κρητικά, p. 203, No 265. His bad dream [a letter from home] makes him heave a sigh which shakes the prison, or stops [splits] the galley.^[foot-note] In Tommaseo, in, 152, on reaching the church, he cries, "Stand aside, gentlemen, stand aside, my masters; let the bride pour for me." She pours him one cup and two, and exclaims (the ring which was dropped into the cup having dropped out of the story), My John has come back! Then they both "go out like candles." In Sakellarios they embrace and fall dead, and when laid in the grave come up as a cypress and a citron tree. In the Cretan ballad John does not dismount, but takes the bride on to the horse and is off with her; so in the beautiful ballad in Fauriel, II, 140, No 11, 'Ἡ Ἁρπαγή' "peut-être la plus distinguée de ce recueil," which belongs with this group, but seems to be later at the beginning and the end. Even here the bride takes a cup to pour a draught for the horseman.

In Russia the ring story is told of Dobrynya and Nastasya. Dobrynya, sent out shortly after his marriage to collect tribute for Vladimir, requests Nastasya to wait for him twelve years: then she may wed again, so it be not with Alesha. Twelve years pass. Alesha avows that he has seen Dobrynya's corpse lying on the steppe, and sues for her hand. Vladimir supports the suit, and Nastasya is constrained to accept this prohibited husband. Dobrynya's horse [two doves, a pilgrim] reveals to his master what is going on, and carries him home with marvellous speed. Do brynya gains admittance to the wedding-feast in the guise of a merry-maker, and so pleases Vladimir with his singing that he is allowed to sit where he likes. He places himself opposite Nastasya, drops his ring in a cup, and asks her to drink to him. She finds the ring in the bottom, falls at his feet and implores pardon.=^[foot-note] Wollner, Volksepik der Grossrussen, p. 122 f; Rambaud, La Russie Epique, p. 86 f.

We have the ring employed somewhat after the fashion of these western tales in Somadeva's story of Vidushaka. The Vidyudharl Bbadra, having to part for a while with Vidushaka, for whom she had conceived a passion, gives him her ring. Subsequently, Vidushaka obliges a rakshas whom he has subdued to convey him to the foot of a mountain on which Bhadra had taken refuge. Many beautiful girls come to fetch water in golden pitchers from a lake, and, on inquiring, Vidushaka finds that the water is for Bhadra. One of the girls asks him to lift her pitcher on to her shoulder, and while doing this he drops into the pitcher Bhadra's ring. When the water is poured on Bhadra's hands, the ring falls out. Bhadra asks her maids if they have -seen a stranger. They say they have seen a mortal, and that he had helped one of them with her pitcher. They are ordered to go for the youth at once, for he is Bhadra's consort.^[foot-note]

According to the letter of the ballads, should the ring given Horn by his lady turn wan or blue, this would signify that she loved another man: but though accuracy would be very desirable in such a case, these words are rather loose, since she never faltered in her love, and submitted to marry another, so far as she submitted, only under constraint. 'Horn Child,' sts 48, 71, agrees with the ballads as to this point. We meet a ring of similar virtue in 'Bonny Bee-Horn,' Jamieson's Popular Ballads, 1, 187, and Buchan's Ballads of the North of Scotland, I, 169.

In the Roumanian ballad, 'Ring and Handkerchief,' a prince going to war gives his wife a ring: if it should rust, he is dead. She gives him a gold-embroidered handkerchief: if the gold melts, she is dead. Alecsandri, Poesiĭ pop. ale Românilor, p. 20, No 7; Stanley, Rouman Anthology, p. 16, p. 193. In Gonzenbach's Sicilianische Märchen, I, 39, No 7, a prince, on parting with his sister, gives her a ring, saying, So long as the stone is clear, I am well: if it is dimmed, that is a sign that I am dead. So No 5, at p. 23. A young man, in a Silesian story, receives a ring from his sweetheart, with the assurance that he can count upon her faith as long as the ring holds; and after twenty years' detention in the mines of Siberia, is warned of trouble by the ring's breaking: Goedsche, Schlesischer Sagen- Historien- u. Legendenschatz, I, 37, No 16. So in some copies of 'Lamkin,' the lord has a foreboding that some ill has happened to his lady from the rings on his fingers bursting in twain: Motherwell, p. 291, st. 23; Finlay, II, 47, st. 30.^[foot-note]

Hind Horn is translated by Grundtvig, Eng. og sk. Folkeviser, p. 274, No 42, mainly after the copy in Motherwell's Minstrelsy; by Rosa Warrens, Schottische V. 1. der Vorzeit, p. 161, No 37, after Buchan (H); by Knortz, L. u. R. Alt-Englands, p. 184, No 52, after Ailingham.

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