It is not, perhaps, material to explain how Owain, "the king's son Urien," happens to be awarded the adventure which here follows. It is enough that his right is as good as that of other knights to whom the same achievement has been assigned, though the romance, or, as the phrase used to be, "the book," says nothing upon the subject. Owain's slaying the fire-drake who was getting the better of the lion may have led to his name becoming associated with the still more gallant exploit of thrice kissing a fire-drake to effect a disenchantment. The ring in A 9 might more plausibly be regarded as being a repetition of that which Owain's lady gave him on leaving her for a twelvemonth's outing, a ring which would keep him from loss of blood, and also from prison, sickness, and defeat in battle — in short, preserve him against all the accidents which the knight suggested might prevent his holding his day — provided that he had it by him and thought on her. Ritson, Ywaine and Gawin, vv 1514-38.
But an Icelandic saga comes near enough to the story of the ballad as given in A to show where its connections lie. Álsól and a brother and sister are all transformed by a stepmother, a handsome woman, much younger than her husband. Álsól's heavy weird is to he a nondescript monster with a horse's tail, hoofs, and mane, white eyes, big mouth, and huge hands, and never to be released from the spell till a king's son shall consent to kiss her. One night when Hjálmtèr had landed on a woody island, and it had fallen to him to keep watch, he heard a great din and crashing in the woods, so that the oaks trembled. Presently this monster came out of the thicket with a fine sword in her hand, such as he had not seen the like of. They had a colloquy, and he asked her to let him have the sword. She said he should not have it unless he would kiss her. "I will not kiss thy snout," said Hjálmtèr, "for mayhap I should stick to it." But something came into his mind which made him think better of her offer, and he said he was ready. "You must leap upon my neck, then," she said, "when I throw up the sword, and if you then hesitate, it will be your death." She threw up the sword, he leaped on her neck and kissed her, and she gave him the sword, with an augury of victory and good luck for him all his days. The retransformation does not occur on the spot, but further on Hjálmtèr meets Álsól as a young lady at the court of her brother, who has also been restored to his proper form and station; everything is explained; Hjálmtèr marries her, and his foster-brother her sister. Hjálmtèrs ok Ölvers Saga, cc 10, 22, Rafn, Fornaldar Sögur, III, 473 ff, 514 ff.
In many tales of the sort a single kiss suffices to undo the spell and reverse the transformation; in others, as in the ballad, three are required. The triplication of the kiss has led in A to a triplication of the talisman against wounds. The popular genius was inventive enough to vary the properties of the several gifts, and we may believe that belt, ring, and sword had originally each its peculiar quality. The peril of touching fin or tail in A seems to correspond to that in the saga of hesitating when the sword is thrown up.
The Danish ballad, 'Jomfruen i Ormeham,' from manuscripts of the sixteenth and the seventeenth century, Grundtvig, No 59, II, 177, resembles both the first version of the Scottish ballad and the Icelandic saga in the points that the maid offers gifts and is rehabilitated by a kiss. The maid in her proper shape, which, it appears, she may resume for a portion of the day, stands at Sir Jenus's bedside and offers him gifts — five silver-bowls, all the gold in her kist, twelve foals, twelve boats — and ends with saying, "Were I a swain, as you are, I would betroth a maid." It is now close upon midnight, and she hints that he must be quick. But Jenus is fast asleep the while; twelve strikes, and the maid instantly turns into a little snake. The page, however, has been awake, and he repeats to his master all that has occurred.[foot-note] Sir Jenus orders his horse, rides along a hillside, and sees the little snake in the grass. He bends over and kisses it, and it turns to a courteous maid, who thanks him, and offers him any boon he may ask. He asks her to be his, and as she has loved him before this, she has no difficulty in plighting him her troth.
A maid transformed by a stepmother into a tree is freed by being kissed by a man, in 'Jomfruen i Linden,' Grundtvig, II, 214, No 66, Kristensen, II, 90, No 31; 'Linden,' Afzelius, III, 114, 118, No 87. In 'Linden,' Kristensen, I, 13, No 5, a combination of two ballads, a prince cuts down the linden, which changes to a linden-worm; he kisses the worm, and a young maid stands before him.
A knight bewitched into the shape of a troll is restored by being kissed by a peasant's wife thrice [once], 'Trolden og Bondens Hustru,' Grundtvig, II, 142, No 52, A, B; a prince by a kiss from a maid, 'Lindormen,' Grundtvig, D. g. F., II, 211, No 6.3 A, 'Slangen og den lille Pige,' Danske Folkeminder, 1861, p. 15.
The removal of a spell which compels man or woman to appear continuously or alternately as a monster, commonly a snake, by three kisses or by one, is a regular feature in the numerous German tales of Schlangenjungfrauen, Weissefrauen. Often the man is afraid to venture the third kiss, or even a single one. See Grimm, Deutsche Sagen, No 13, No 222; Dobeneck, Des deutschen Mittelalters Volksglauben, I, 18 = Grimm, No 13; Mone's Anzeiger, III, 89, VII, 476; Panzer, Bayerische Sagen u. Bräuche, I, 196, No 214; Schönhuth, Die Burgen u.s.w. Badens u. der Pfalz, I, 105; Stöber, Die Sagen des Elsasses, p. 346, No 277, p. 248, No 190; Curtze, Volksüberlieferungen aus Waldeck, p. 198; Sommer, Sagen, Märchen u. Gebräuche aus Sachsen u. Thüringen, p. 21, No 16; Schambach u. Müller, p. 104, No 132; Müllenhoff, p. 580, No 597; Wolf, Hessische Sagen, No 46; etc., etc.: also, Kreutzwald, Ehstnische Märchen, by Löwe, No 19, p. 270 f. So in some forms of 'Beauty and the Beast:' Töppen, Aberglauben aus Masuren, p. 142; Mikuličić, Narodne Pripovietke, p. 1, No 1; Afanasief, VII, 153, No 15; Coelho, Contos populares portuguezes, p. 69, No 29.[foot-note]
Rivals or peers of Owain among romantic knights are, first, Lanzelet, in Ulrich von Zatzikhoven's poem, who kisses a serpent on the mouth once, which, after bathing in a spring (see 'Tam Lin'), becomes the finest woman ever seen: vv 7836-7939. Brandimarte, again, in Orlando Innamorato, lib. II., c. XXVI, stanzas 7-15; and Carduino, I Cantari di Carduino, Rajna, stanzas 49, 54 f, 61-64, pp 35-41. Le Bel Inconnu is an involuntary instrument in such a disenchantment, for the snake fascinates him first and kisses him without his knowledge; he afterwards goes to sleep, and finds a beautiful woman standing at his head when he wakes: ed. Hippeau, p. 110 ff, v. 3101 ff. The English Libius Disconius is kist or he it wist, and the dragon at once turns to a beautiful woman: Percy Manuscript, Hales & Furnivall, II, 493f; Ritson, Romances, II, 84 f. Espertius, in Tiran le Blanc, is so overcome with fear that he cannot kiss the dragon, — a daughter of Hippocrates, transformed by Diana, in the island of Lango, — but Espertius not running away, as two men before him had done, the dragon kisses him with equally good effect: Caylus, Tiran le Blanc, II, 334-39. This particular disenchantment had not been accomplished down to Sir John Mandeville's time, for he mentions only the failures: Voyage and Travel, c. iv, pp 28-31, ed. 1725. Amadis d'Astra touches two dragons on the face and breast, and restores them to young-ladyhood: Historia del Principe Sferamundi, the 13th book of Amadis of Gaul, P. II, c. xcvii, pp 458-462, Venice, 1610. This feat is shown by the details to be only a variation of the story in Tiran le Blanc.[foot-note]
The Rev. Mr. Lamb, of Norham, communicated to Hutchinson, author of 'A View of Northumberland,' a ballad entitled' The Laidley Worm of Spindleston Heughs,' with this harmless preamble: "A song 500 years old, made by the old Mountain Bard, Duncan Frasier, living on Cheviot, A.D. 1270. From an ancient manuscript." This composition of Mr. Lamb's — for nearly every line of it is his — is not only based on popular tradition, but evidently preserves some small fragments of a popular ballad, and for this reason is given in an Appendix. There is a copy deviating but very little from the print in Kinloch's Manusctipts, I, 187. It was obtained from the recitation of an old woman in Berwickshire.[foot-note] In this recited version the Child of Wynd, or Childy Wynd (Child O-wyne), has become Child o Wane (Child O-wayn).
Mr. R.H. Evans, in his preface to this ballad, Old Ballads, 1810, IV, 241, says that Mr. Turner had informed him "that a lady upwards of seventy had heard her mother repeat an older and nearly similar ballad."
A is translated by Rosa Warrens, Schottische Volkslieder, p. 19; B b by Gerhard, p. 171, by Schubart, p. 110, by Knortz, Lieder u. Romanzen Alt-Englands, p. 201. 'Jomfruen i Onneham' by Prior, III, 135.
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