G, as printed by Finlay, was made up from various fragments. Of his twenty-seven stanzas fourteen were taken from C, and these are now omitted. A 13, D 5, G 4, 5, C 19, are fonnd also in some copies of 'Fair Annie of Loch-royal;' C 19 also in 'Sweet Willie and Fair Annie.' The very inappropriate question in F 4, "O will ye gang to the cards, Meggie," occurs in Jamieson's 'Clerk Saunders,' I, 84, st. 5. The inquiry in G 1, "Will you burn for Sweet Willie?" may probably have been suggested by the ballad of 'Lady Maisry.' We have the oath by the thorn, G 13, in 'Glasgerion.' For the conclusion of A, E, see No 7, I, 96 ff.
Fair Janet, A, B, E [Annet, MaisryJ, loving Sweet Willie, and on the point of becoming a mother by him, is destined by her father to marry a French lord, A; a Southland lord, B, E, G. She implores Willie to fly with her over sea, B, C; to good green wood, F. They set sail, but her condition obliges her to return, B; her time comes before they can get away, C. She bears a child.[foot-note] To avoid discovery, the babe is taken to Willie's mother, who very readily assumes charge of it. Scarcely has the child been born, when Janet's father comes with orders to busk the bride, A, B, C(?), E, F. She begs to be tenderly handled, as not being in good plight. They attire her gayly, and she selects Willie to lead her horse, or ride before her on her horse, to church, A, B, E. Her cheek is pale, her color goes and comes; it is suspected, and even suggested, that she has borne a bairn, or is near to doing so, A 22, C 14, D 10, E 11, F 25. She seeks to clear herself by an ambiguous oath, E 12, G 26, 27; Willie does this for her, G 11. After dinner, or supper, A, B, dancing is in order. Janet makes excuses to her brothers, her father, the bridegroom's man, and declines very decidedly the bridegroom's own invitation, with marked asperity in A, B. But with Willie she will dance though her heart shuuld break in three. She takes three turns, and falls down dead. Willie gives the key of his coffer to his man, and bids him tell his mother that his horse has slain him. He would not survive Janet in any pure and full form of the story, and does not in A, C, E.
'Sweet William,' Motherwell's Minstrelsy, p. 307, borrows some stanzas at the beginning from 'Fair Janet.'
There are points of resemblance between 'Fair Janet' and a ballad very popular in Scandinavia and in Germany, which demand notice, though they may not warrant the assumption of community of origin.
The Scandinavian ballad is: Danish, 'Kong Valdemar og hans Søster,' Grundtvig, No 126, III, 63 ff, 911 f, A-I; G from a sixteenth-century manuscript, A-F from seventeenth-century manuscripts or print, the two last from recent tradition. Icelandic, 'Soffíu kvæði,' Íslenzk Fornkvæði, No 52, II, 152, A-F, all of which, according to Grundtvig, must be put, at latest, in the seventeenth century, though some are first met with in the eighteenth. Färöe, a single copy, almost Danish, from the beginning of this century, printed by Grundtvig, III, 67 f. Norwegian, three copies from recent tradition, Grundtvig, III, 69, 913 f. Swedish, all from this century, 'Liten Kerstin och Fru Sofia,' Arwidsson, No 53, I, 335-51, A-E; F, G, in Cavallius and Stephens' collection, Grundtvig, III, 70; H, 'Liten Kerstin och drottning Sofia,' Wigström, Folkdiktning, I, 79.[foot-note]
The German ballad is: A. 'Graf Hans von Holstein und seine Schwester Annchristine,' Müllenhoff, p. 492, No 48. B.'Der grobe Bruder,' Wunderhorn, II, 272, 1808, Birlinger und Crecelius, II, 24. C. 'Der grausame Bruder,' Parisius, p. 38, No 12, A. D. 'Das Lied vom Pfalzgrafen,' Düntzer und Herder, Briefe Goethe's an Herder, I, 154. E. 'Der grausame Bruder,' Erk, Liederhort, p. 153, No 45. F. 'Christinchen,' Pröhle, p. 4, No 2. G. Wunderhorn, Birlinger und Crecelius, II, 247, No 4. H. Parisius, No 12, C. I. Reifferscheid, p. 107. J. 'Der böse Bruder,' Zuccalmaglio, p. 185, No 89. K. 'Der Pfalzgraf vom Rhein,' Wunderhorn, I, 259, 1806, Birlinger und Crecelius, II, 24. L. 'Der grausame Bruder,' Hoffmann und Richter, Schlesische Volkslieder, p. 49, No 27. M. Parisius, No 12, B. A version in broadside style, Erlach, II, 585, Doenniges, p. 217; compounded copies, Simrock, No 16, Scherer, Jungbrunnen, No 35, A.
According to the Scandinavian story, a king is informed by his queen, her inexorable enemy, that Kirstin, his sister, has just borne a child. The king sends for Kirstin, who is at some distance, to come to him immediately. She is obliged to make the journey on horseback. Upon her arrival the king puts her to a variety of tests, among these a long dance. Kirstin comes off so well that her brother says the queen has belied her. The queen then bares Kirstin's breast and makes milk flow from it. The king hereupon sends for heavy whips, and flogs his sister to the point of death. In the Icelandic and Färöe versions Kirstin dies of the dance, in her brother's arms. In the Swedish versions and in Danish I the king is Kirstin's father, not her brother. The Norwegian versions and Swedish F, H have a false conclusion: Kirstin survives, and is united to her lover. In Danish A the king had, before he learned the state of things, promised his sister to the son of the King of England, and in Danish F, H, I, Swedish F, and the Färöe ballad, Kirstin's lover is an English prince, who, in Danish H, comes to claim his mistress, and, finding her dead, kills the king. In Swedish A Kirstin dances with four, dances with five, dances with all the men of the court, and in Swedish C, H she tires out successively all the courtiers, the king, and the queen.
A, far the best preserved of the German versions, makes a hunter ask a count for his sister Annchristine. Being refused, as an unequal match, he tells the count that his sister, for all her nobility, has borne a child. The count maintains Annchristine to be a maid. The hunter says, Send for her, and see. The young lady is required to come on horseback. When her brother sees her approaching, with her long hair flowing, his confidence is strengthened. The hunter says, Make her dance. She dances seven hours, and her brother finds reason to continue of the same mind as before. The hunter says, Let us tighten her lacing, and, when that is done, milk springs from her breasts. Her brother gives her the choice between whipping and the sword. She chooses the former. He beats her till liver and lung; spring from her body. She then calls on him to stop; Prince Frederick of England is his brother-in-law. The count is much troubled, and promises everything if she will live. But Annchristine dies, and presently Prince Frederick appears. He has heard of what the count has done, cuts him to bits, and gives him to the crows.
In the other German versions the informant is generally of low rank, and sometimes professes to be father of the child. In B, C, G, H, K he is a kitchey-boy, a personage who plays no insignificant part in romantic story. The coming on horseback is wanting. The long dance is found in B-F. The father or the child is always the English King, who runs the brother through with his sword, B, D. E, G, K, L, or otherwise gives him his due.
The slight resemblance and the great difference of the Scottish story are apparent. Fair Janet has to go a certain distance on horseback, at a time when she is peculiarly ill fitted to do so, like the hapless Kirstin of the Scandinavian ballads and the German A, and she dies from dancing in her weak condition, as the lady does in the Icelandic and Färöe ballad. But both the ride and the dance are incidental to her forced marriage, and neither the ride nor the dance is employed as a test, as the dance always is in the other ballad, and as the ride is expressly devised to be in German A 6. The Scottish Janet is not constrained to dance, nor does she dance down all the men in the room. She declines every invitation except Willie's, and this, in some cases she (very naturally and touchingly) encourages or incites; and her vital powers give way after three turns. All the unspeakably ferocious features of the Norse and German ballads are wanting, and the bound which divides the pathetic from the horrible is never passed.
A Breton ballad, 'Ar C'homt Gwillou,' 'Prinses ar Gwillou,' 'Le Comte Guillou,' 'La Princesse Le Guillou,' Luzel, II, 6-15, in three versions, has the probation by dancing. A count or prince, returning to his mistress after a considerable absence, happens to hear a shepherdess singing a song, of which he himself is unfortunately the subject. The lady has had a child. Fearing to encounter her injured lover, she tries to pass off as a younger sister for herself, but, as may be imaginged, this desperate artifice does not succeed. She is told what is said of her, and hopes she may melt like butter if ever she had daughter or son. The count calls out, Play up musicians, that we may see how this damsel will step out. The young woman pleads that she is suffering from fever, and cannot dance just now, but the count strikes her on the breast so that milk spurts on her gown, A. He kills her.[foot-note]
There is also a Magyar ballad, in which a jealous or offended lover makes his mistress dance till her boots are full of blood, as Kjersti's are in Norwegian A, B: 'Darvas Kis Clement,' Aigner, p. 110.
One or two correspodences with the Scandinavian-German ballad will require to be noted under 'Lady Maisry,' which immediately follows.
A is translated by Knorts, Schottische Balladen, No 7; F by Gerhard, p. 97; a combination of A, C and others by Grundtvig, No 39.
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