A knight and a squire, sworn brothers, have a talk about fair women. 'There's nae gude women but nine,' says the squire. 'My luck is the better,' replies the knight, 'that one of them is mine.' The squire undertakes to win the knight's wife within six months, if the husband will go over seas for that time; the knight is willing to give him nine months. The knight's lands are wagered (21) against the squire's life (23). As soon as the knight is at sea, the squire comes to the lady with an offer of money. If you were not my lord's brother, says the lady, I would hang you on a pin before my door. The squire betakes himself to his foster-mother, sets forth his case, and offers her a heavy bribe for her aid. The false carline goes to the lady and opens her business; the lady will never wrong her lord. The carline (who is the wife's foster-mother as well) now pretends concern about the lady's health, which is in danger for want of sleep. She turns all the people out of the castle, lulls the dame to sleep, and introduces the squire. He wakes the lady, and tells her that she is in his power. The lady has presence of mind; it would, she says, be a sin to defile her husband's bed, but she will come to the squire's bed at night. She then offers her niece five hundred pounds to go to the squire in her place. The young woman was never so much disposed to say nay, but goes, notwithstanding. When the squire has had his will, he cuts off 'her ring but and her ring-finger.' The maids come from the hay, the young men from the corn, and the lady tells them all that has passed. She will tie her finger in the dark, and hopes to loose it in the light. The knight returns, and is greeted by the squire as a landless lord. The ring and ring-finger are exhibited in proof. Thereupon the knight gives a dinner, to which he asks the squire and his wife's parents. He throws his charters across the table and bids his wife farewell forever. It is now time for the lady to loose in the light the finger which she had tied in the dark. Come here, my lord, she says. No smith can join a finger. My niece 'beguiled the squire for me.' They lay before the niece a sword and a ring, and she is to have her choice, to stick the squire with the sword, or to wed him with the ring. Thrice she puts out her hand as if to take the sword, but she ends with taking up the ring.
This ballad can have had no currency in Scotland, and perhaps was known only through print. A similar one is strictly traditional in Greece, and widely dispersed, both on the mainland and among the islands.
Romaic. A. Νεοελληνικὰ Ανάλεκτα, I, 80, No 16, 75 vv., Melos. B. 'Τὸ στοίχημα τοῦ βασιλιᾶ καὶ τοῦ Μαυριανοῦ,' Jeannaraki, p. 231, No 294, 76 w., Crete. C. 'Ὁ Μαυριανὸς καὶ ὁ βασιλεύς,' Zampelios, p. 719, No 6, 61 vv., Corcyra (?); repeated in Passow, p. 355, No 474, Kind's Anthologie, p. 56. D. 'Τοῦ Μαυριανοπούλου,' Manousos, II, 56, 51 vv., Corcyra (?). E. 'Ὁ Μαυριανὸς κ’ ὁ βασιλεῦς,' Pappadopoulos in Πανδώρα, XV, 417, 23 vv., Cargese, Corsica; repeated in Legrand, p. 302, No 136. F. Δελτίον τῆς ἱστορικῆς καὶ ἐθνολογικῆς ἑταιρίας τῆς Ἑλλάδος, I, 551, No 5, 35 vv., Peloponnesus. G. 'Ὁ Στραυριανὸς καὶ ὁ βασιλιᾶς,' Melandrakes, in the same, III, 345, 54 vv., Patmos. H. 'Τὸ Στοίχημα,' Kanellakes, Χιακὰ ἀνάλεκτα, p. 8, No 5, 50 w., Chios. I a. Bartholdy, Bruchstücke zur nähern Kenntniss des heutigen Griechenlands, 1805, p. 434, 78 vv., translation without text. b. 'Maurogène,' Lemercier, I, 167, translation without text, neighborhood of Arta. J. 'Στοίχημα Διονῦ καὶ Χαντσαρλῆ,' Chasiotes, p. 142, No 14, 26 vv., Epirus.
The personages are #924;αυριανός, B-E, Μαυγιανός, A, Mavrogeni, I, Σταυριανός, G, Γιάννος, F, #922;ωσταντῆς, H; his sister, A-I, #7944;ρετή, D, #924;άρω, F, #923;ιερή, G, and in I b (unless the name is supplied by the editor), Cymodore; a king, anonymous except in J, #916;ιωνύς, in which also the other two parties are husband (#8001; χαντσιαπλῆς, the chancellor) and wife.
At the king's table there is talk of women fair or foul. Maurianos extols his sister (the chancellor his wife, I), whom gifts cannot seduce. What shall be your forfeit, asks the king, if I seduce her? Maurianos stakes his head, A-I, and the girl is to be the king's slave, H; the king, his kingdom and crown, A, B, his property, C, F. There is a mutual wager of nine towers of silver, J. The young man is to be a prisoner till the morning, I. The king begins, in A, B, by engaging the services of witches eighteen, witches fifteen, or bawds eighteen, witches fifteen. They ply their magic early and late: forty days to get up her stair, other four-and-forty to get sight of the girl, A. They address her with flatteries, but are rebuffed, A, B. The king sends rich presents, A, C-I; beasts laden with silver and money, nine, twelve, twenty and again ten. The girl receives them with professions of pleasure; her brother will return the compliment to the giver. It is explained that no return is looked for; the presents are from the king, who desires to pass the night with her. (In J the king goes straight to the wife, and says that he has her husband's permission.) The lady affects to put herself at the king's disposition. She appeals to her maid-servants, A, B; first her "nurses," then her maids, C; one servant, and then another, H. Which of them will enable her to keep her word, change clothes with her, and pass the night with the king? Only Maria, the youngest of all (of forty, B), is willing to stead her mistress in this strait, A-C. In D-G, I, J, there is but one nurse or servant, and she assents, or follows her mistress's directions as a matter of course. The servant is to have the king's present in D. The substitute is elaborately combed and dressed, with a gold band round her hair, and a beautiful ring on her finger. At midnight, or before dawn, the king cuts off the finger that has the ring, A, I, her finger, B, F, G, H (fingers, B, v. 43), little finger, D, E; takes the ring from her finger, C, all the rings from her fingers, J. He also cuts off her hair (braid), with its golden band, B (braids, v. 43), C, I, her hair (braid), with the golden flowers, A, with the pearl, H, right braid, D, braid, F, G, I, extremity of her braid, B. These are to serve as tokens; he puts them in his handkerchief, A, D. He takes his trophies to the assembly. Maurianos has lost his wager, and is to be hanged. Where is Maurianos, the braggart, and where his precious sister, whom no gifts could seduce? Word comes to the sister. She dresses herself beautifully, and makes her way into the assembly; she would fain know why they are to hang Maurianos. 'I have seduced his sister,' says the king, 'and I will hang Maurianos.' The girl demands tokens. 'I cut off her finger, with the golden sapphire; I cut off her hair, with the golden flowers (band).' She extends her hand; the earth is filled with sapphires. 'See, lords! are fingers of mine wanting?' She flings out her hair; the earth is filled with flowers. 'See, lords! is a braid of mine wanting?' (A, B, and the rest to the same effect.) Then she turns to the king. 'It fits you no more to play the king,' A, B. 'You have slept with my slave, and my slave you shall be,' C-I. 'Take my mule and go fetch wood.' In A, B, the king has to marry Maria. In F, John becomes king (as a consequence of winning the wager). In I, the people depose the king and make Maurianos's sister queen.
There are numerous tales in which a man wagers heavily upon a woman's (generally his wife's) constancy, and, upon plausible evidence, which in the end proves to be nugatory, is adjudged to have lost.[foot-note] We are concerned only with a small section of these stories, characterized by the circumstances that the woman whose virtue is questioned puts another woman in her place in the encounter with the assailant, and that the proofs of success offered are a finger, finger-ring, and head, or braid, of hair[foot-note] (one of these, or more).
A rhymed tale of the thirteenth century, 'Von zwein Kaufmannen,' by Ruprecht von Würzburg,[foot-note] has the following story, evidently French by origin. Bertram, a merchant of Verdun, who has been happily married for ten years, is required in the course of business to go to a fair at Provins. While he is sitting at table in an inn with other merchants, Hogier, the host, sets his guests to talking of their wives, and three of them give a very bad account of their domestic experiences. Bertram, when urged to take his turn, professes himself the most fortunate of men, for his wife (Irmengard) is, for beauty, sense, modesty, manners, the flower of womankind. The host declares that the man is mad, and offers to stake all his goods against Bertram's that he will seduce this peerless wife within six months. The wager is accepted, and Bertram, to afford an opportunity, sends his wife word that he shall be gone from home longer than he had intended. Hogier goes to Verdun and takes a lodging opposite to Bertram's house. He begins with presents and messages to Irmengard; she treats these with contempt, and threatens to make a complaint to her friends. He gives bounties to the servants, who sing his praises to their mistress till they are told that they will be thrashed if they continue. He then gives a pound to Irmengard's favorite maid, Amelin, and commissions her to offer a hundred mark if he may have his will; and the wife proving to be both firm and indignant, he raises his offer to two hundred mark, and finally to a thousand for one night. Not only the maid, but Irmengard's own father and her husband's father, to whom she successively appeals, urge her to take this large sum, and assure her that she will incur her husband's resentment if she does not. A way out of her difficulties now occurs to her (which the author of the poem represents as an express suggestion from God). She asks the maid if she will give Hogier a night for the consideration of a hundred mark; Amelin is ready so to do for half the money. Hogier is told to pay in his thousand, and an appointment is made. Irmengard receives him in Amelin's garb, and Amelin in Irmengard's. In the morning Hogier asks for some jewel as a keepsake, and the maid having nothing to give him, he cuts off one of her fingers. He now calls upon Bertram to pay his forfeit. Bertram has some doubt whether he has not been tricked. It is mutually agreed that the matter shall be settled at a banquet which Bertram is to give at Verdun. Bertram, upon his return home, cannot conceal a deep depression. His wife asks him the cause, and he opens his mind to her; she bids him be of good cheer, for all Hogier's goods are theirs. At the banquet Hogier states his case, and produces the finger in confirmation of his claim. Irmengard, asked what answer she has to make, humorously replies that she is sorry for her misbehavior, but all her friends, there present, had advised her to commit it. She then shows her hands, both unmarred. Amelin comes in and complains of the treatment she has received. Hogier owns that he has lost, and desires to become Bertram's 'poor man.' Amelin is given him as wife, with her hundred mark for a dowry. Here we have wager, substitution, finger cut off, as in the Scottish ballad and most of the Romaic versions, and the loser marries the maid, as in the Scottish ballad and Romaic A, B.
The Mabinogi of Taliesin, "in its present form not older than the thirteenth century," has the incidents of the substitution of the maid-servant, the finger and finger-ring, with the modification that the wife's general high character, and not simply her continence, is impugned and vindicated.
At a Christmas feast in the palace of King Maelgwn, the company were discoursing of the unequalled felicity of the king, upon whom heaven had bestowed, with every other good gift, a queen whose virtues exceeded those of all the noble ladies in the kingdom. Elphin, Maelgwn's nephew, said, None but a king may vie with a king; otherwise he would say that his own wife was as virtuous as any lady in the kingdom. Maelgwn was not there to hear this boast, but it was duly reported to him, and he ordered Elphin to be thrown into prison, pending a test of Elphin's wife which he deputed his graceless son, Rhun, to make. Taliesin, Elphin's bard, warned the lady that Rhun would try to put some disgrace upon her, and advised that one of the servants should personate her mistress when Rhun came to the house. Accordingly, a kitchen-maid was dressed up in her mistress's clothes, and was seated at the supper-table, her hands loaded with rings. Rhun made his appearance and was welcomed by the disguised menial. He fell to jesting with her, put a powder into her drink, which cast her into a sound sleep, and cut off her little finger, on which was Elphin's signet-ring. The king assembled his councillors, had Elphin brought in from prison, and showed him the finger, which (so Rhun had averred) had been cut from his wife's hand the preceding night, while she was sunk in a drunken sleep. Elphin could not deny that the ring was his, but he gave three incontrovertible reasons why the finger could not be his wife's, one of these being that the ring was too large to stay on his wife's thumb, yet too small to go over the joint of the little finger of the hand from which it had been cut; and the fact was put beyond question by Taliesin's afterwards bringing in Elphin's wife at a state-dinner, and displaying her unmutilated hand.[foot-note]
A lively play of Jakob Ayrer's (about 1600) has the wager, the substitution, the ring offered in evidence (as in Romaic C, G), the marriage with the maid.
Claudius, master of the hunt to the Prince of Calabria, on the eve of his departure on a voyage, is heard by two courtiers, Leipolt and Seübolt, soliloquizing on the excellences of his wife, Frigia, her housekeeping, virtue, and love for him. They wager all their goods against his that they will bring the woman to do their will. One undertakes to present her wedding-ring, the other her necklace, in proof of the achievement. Leipolt and Seübolt, always acting severally, attempt to buy the services of Jahn Türck, a quick-witted and loyal servant of Claudius. He tells everything to his mistress, and by his advice she dresses two of her maids in her clothes and lets them meet the men, warning them to keep within bounds. Leipolt and Seübolt, each finding the supposed lady coy, are content to secure the means of winning their wager, and, by Frigia's connivance (who, it seems, had come to knowledge of the wager through Jahn), one of them receives her ring, the other her necklace, as pretended love-tokens. Claudius comes home. Leipolt informs the prince of the wager, and asks Claudius whether he knows the ring and will pay; Seübolt brings out the necklace. Claudius gives all for lost. The prince sends for Frigia. She challenges the courtiers to say that she has misbehaved with them. They own that they have never laid eyes on her, but they recognize the maids when they are brought in, still in their mistress's clothes. Frigia explains in detail. The prince addresses his councillors (for such they are) in terms of exemplary severity, and adjudges them to marry the maids, making over one third of their property to these and another to Claudius, or to lose their heads. (Compare the Scottish ballad at the end.) They prefer to keep their heads.[foot-note]
A Danish ballad, very popular in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, has the wager (only on the part of the assailant), but the story takes a different turn from the foregoing, for the irresistible knight has simply a conversation with the lady, in which he meets with a definitive repulse.
'Væddemaalet,' 'Herr Lave og Herr Iver Blaa,' Grundtvig, IV, 302, No 224, A-L, Kristensen, I, 319, No 118, X, 137, No 36; Prior, III, 28, No 104. Lange (Lave) and Peder (Iver) sit at the board talking of wives and fair maids. Peder asserts that the maid lives not in the world whom he cannot cajole with a word. Lange knows the maid so virtuous that neither words nor gold can beguile. Peder wagers life (gold, goods, house, land) and neck (halsbane) that she shall be his by the morrow. He rides straightway to Ingelil, Thorlof's daughter, and makes love to her in honorable phrase. Ingelil reminds him of two ladies who have received the same professions from him and been betrayed. If she will be his dear, every finger shall wear the red gold: her father has nine gold rings, and would give them all to her if she wished. If she will be his, she shall have a train of servants, out and in: she is not halt or blind, and can go out and in by herself. If he cannot have his will with her, it will cost him his white halsbane: much better so than that he should cheat her, or any honorable maid. Peder rides away sorrowful, for lost is gold and his white halsbane besides.[foot-note] We have already had the Scottish counterpart of this ballad, with variations for better or worse, in 'Redesdale and Wise William,' IV, 383, No 246, A-C.
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