'King Estmere' occurred at page 249 of Percy's folio manuscript, but the three leaves on which it was written were "unfortunately torn out" by Percy to send to the press, and the genuine form of the ballad thereby put beyond recovery. In the second and later editions of the Reliques the editor professes to give the ballad from two copies ("containing very great variations," 1794), one of them being that of the folio. But here and elsewhere Percy employs a singular periphrasis, as he has explained to us in the preface to the Reliques, and means only that he has amended his original more or less. Notwithstanding the seemingly explicit lauguage, there is no second copy at all.[foot-note]
We are told by Percy, in a note to stanza 63, that though liberties have been taken with that portion of the ballad which follows, yet wherever the fourth edition differs from the preceding ones it has been brought nearer to the folio.[foot-note] Some notes of readings of the folio are also furnished in the fourth edition (and are here restored), which were not given in the others. While we cannot but be vexed that so distinguished a ballad, not injured much, so far as we can see, by time, should not come down to us as it came to Percy, our loss must not be exaggerated. The changes made by the editor, numerous enough, no doubt, cannot be very material until we approach the end. Stanzas 63-66 are entirely suspicious, and it may even be questioned whether the manuscript contained a word that is in them.
The name of Bremor, son of the king of Spain, and "a heathen hound" (if this be not Percy's interpolation), taken with certain resemblances in the story, very naturally suggested to Professor Sophus Bugge (Grundtvig, IV, 704) a connection between this ballad and 'Young Orm and Bermer-Giant,' 'Orm Ungersvend og Bermer-Rise.'[foot-note] The giant, who is described as a rabid berserker, presents himself at the Danish court (Grundtvig, A), and demands that the king shall give him his daughter and half his land, or find a man who will fight in the ring with him. The king refuses daughter and land, and says he will find a champion. He offers the chance of winning so fair a may to his men, and no one dares say a word except Young Orm, who sits lowest at the board: he will be the man. But first Orm provides himself with an irresistible sword, which is buried in his father's tomb, and is yielded by the dead man only upon the condition that his son shall take the revenge due for his death. With this sword Orm, like the child in 'Sir Aldingar,' cuts the giant through at the knees, being, he says, not tall enough to strike higher. He then goes to Iceland, and fights three days with the men who had slain his father, but without prevailing. A mermaid, from the sea-bottom, cries out to him that his sword is under a spell, and that he must whirl it three times round his head and then stick the point in the ground. This done, he has no difficulty in despatching his foes. He returns to the Danish court, and marries the princess.
The likeness between the English ballad and the Danish (which represents well enough the other Norse poems) is that a youthful champion wins a king's daughter by killing a truculent competitor, who has nearly the same name in both (Bremor, Bermer).
Further consideration led Bugge to maintain that the proper subject of 'King Estmere' is rather the story of Hjalmar, Odd and Anganty, and that the English ballad is better represented by the tragic Färöe ballad of 'Arngrim's Sons' than by 'Orm and Bermer-Giant,' which last he regards as a free reconstruction of an earlier and fuller form of 'Arngrim's Sons' than has come down to us. The points in which the story of Hjalmar, Odd and Anganty[foot-note] is like 'King Estmere,' in contrast with the Orm ballad, are that the hero does not fight single-handed with the giant, but has the help of Odd (Adler); that the king's daughter chooses her husband for herself; that the bride is not won by a sword taken from a father's grave. The argument is, however, much too intricate and too long to be repeated here, even had the subtle and accomplished advocate shown full confidence in the conclusion.
But this confidence he does not feel, for, as he conceives, King Estmere again exhibits resemblances to 'Ogier le Danois,' the basis of the Danish ballad 'Holger Danske og Burmand,' Grundtvig, No 30.[foot-note] The name Adler, says Bugge, is about as near to Ogier, Oddgeir, as to Oddr. Adler's brother, Estmere, might be the chivalrous paynim Karaheus, despite the unlike name, and King Adland's daughter the amiral's daughter Gloriande, the beloved of Karaheus. Brunamons of Majorca, to whom the amiral offers his daughter after the defection of Karaheus, may be Bremer of Spain. Ogier, like Adler (in Percy's edition), kills the hateful interloper, and Karaheus, like Estmere, gets the lady, but without taking part in the fight. If this hypothesis is not quite so satisfactory as the other, we may combine both. The English ballad may have been derived from some form of 'Arngrim's Sons,' but have been modified under the influence of 'Ogier le Danois.'[foot-note]
A brief statement of these speculations may suffice in view of their inconclusiveness, which is the greater by reason of our not knowing to what extent Percy interfered with his manuscript.
The names Adler and Estmere appear again in a short romance in the Percy manuscript, Hales and Furnivall, II, 296. The story is that of Hugdietrich in the Heldenbuch: von der Hagen, I, 169, ed. 1855, Amelung and Jänicke, I, 167; given by Weber in Illustrations of Northern Antiquities, p. 63. Adler is a king, and, like Estmere in the ballad, is exacting in the matter of a wife. In the Heldenbuch it is not the young man who is so difficult to suit, but his guardian. Estmere (v. 11, where there is corruption or defect) appears to be Adler's messenger to King Ardine, the father of a lady who answers all requirements, and who, as it turns out, likes Adler, but is not to be had on easy terms.[foot-note]
'King Estmere' begins very much like the Danish ballad, 'Den farlige Jomfru,' Grundtvig, No 184, and especially like version D.
For knights and others to ride into hall, and up to the high board, is quite according to use. Everyone will remember the passage in Chaucer's Squire's Tale, vv 30 ff. So again in Sir Perceval, Thornton Romances, p. 19, xxxi; Sir Degrevant, the same, p. 227, lxxvi; Libius Disconius, Percy Manuscript, Hales and Furnivall, II, 486, v. 1951 (Skeat); Madden's Syr Gawayne, p. 8 ff, p. 111, v. 332; Perceval le Gallois, ed. Potvin, II, 125, vv 12,640-50; Messire Gauvain, p. 27, p. 146; Mabinogion, I, 70, 303 f, II, 257; Stowe's Survey of London (vol. II, book VI, p. 48, ed. 1720, following Walsingham), cited by Percy in his Essay on the Ancient Minstrels, Reliques, I, xli, lxxxvii, ed. 1794; Warton's History of English Poetry, II, 172, note d, ed. 1840.
The champion of England formerly rode into Westminster Hall in the coronation ceremony, but this part of the spectacle was omitted from the two last coronations.
King Estmere stables his steed at the hall board. Here again the minstrel is within the bounds of custom. "On voyait au moyen âge, dans la salle des chefs gallois, d'énormes crampons de fer, fixés au pavé de distance en distance, qui servaient aux chevaliers pour attacher leurs chevaux, car ils y entraient souvent avec eux; quelques-uns les conduisaient même jusque dans leur chambre à coucher:" Villemarqué, Les Romans de la Table Ronde, etc., 1860, p. 416 (cited by Liebrecht).
For bribing to secrecy with an arm-ring, stanza 47, see, also, Grundtvig, No 82, A 14, 15, B 20, 21; No 95, D 16, 17, Kristensen, I, No 96, 16; Grundtvig, No 233, A 18, B 12, D 13; No 274, A 21.
Translated by Grundtvig, Engelske og skotske Folkeviser, p. 1; by Bodmer, I, 27; Herder, I, 195; Knortz, L. u. R. Alt-Englands, No 14.
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