'Allison Gross' was printed by Jamieson, Popular Ballads, II, 187, without deviation from the manuscript save in spelling.
In a Greek tale, a nereid, that is elf or fairy, turns a youth who had refused to espouse her into a snake, the curse to continue till he finds another love who is as fair as she: 'Die Schönste,' B. Schmidt, Griechische Märchen, etc., No 10. This tale is a variety of 'Beauty and the Beast,' one of the numerous wild growths from that ever charming French story.[foot-note]
An elf, a hill-troll, a mermaid, make a young man offers of splendid gifts, to obtain his love or the promise of his faith, in 'Elveskud,' Grundtvig, No 47, many of the Danish and two of the Norwegian copies; 'Hertig Magnus och Elfvorna,' Afzelius. III, 172; 'Hr. Magnus og Bjærgtrolden,' Grundtvig, No 48, Arwidsson, No 147 B; 'Herr Magnus och Hafstrollet,' Afzelius, No 95, Bugge. No 11; a lind-worm. similarly, to a young woman, 'Lindormen,' Grundtvig, No 65. Magnus answers the hill-troll that he should be glad to plight faith with her were she like other women. but she is the ugliest troll that could be found: Grundtvig, II, 121, A 6, B 7; Arwidsson, II, 303, B 5; Afzelius, III, 168, st. 5, 173, st. 6. This is like what we read in stanza 7 of our ballad, but the answer is inevitable in any such case. Magnus comes off scot-free.
The queen of the fairies undoing the spell of the witch is a remarkable feature, not paralleled, so far as I know, in English or northern tradition. The Greek nereids, however, who do pretty much everything, good or bad, that is ascribed to northern elves or fairies, and even bear an appellation resembling that by which fairies are spoken of in Scotland and Ireland, "the good damsels," "the good ladies," have a queen who is described as taking no part in the unfriendly acts of her subjects, but as being kindly disposed towards mankind, and even as repairing the mischief which subordinate sprites have done against her will. If now the fairy queen might interpose in behalf of men against her own kith and kin, much more likely would she be to exert herself to thwart the malignity of a witch.[foot-note]
The object of the witch's blowing thrice on a grass-green horn in 82 is not clear, for nothing comes of it. In the closely related ballad which follows this, a witch uses a horn to summon the sea-fishes, among whom there is one who has been the victim of her spells. The horn is appropriate. Witches were supposed to blow horns when they joined the wild hunt, and horn-blower, "hornblâse," is twice cited by Grimm as an equivalent to witch: Deutsche Mythologie, p. 886.
Translated by Grundtvig, Engelske og skotske Folkeviser, No 19; by Rosa Warrens, Schottische Volkslieder, No 7; Knortz, Lieder und Romanzen A1t-Englands, No 9; Loève-Veimars, Ballades de l'Angleterre, p. 353.
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