C was furnished Jamieson from Herd's Manuscripts by Scott, and underwent a few slight changes in publication. Jamieson inquired through the Scots Magazine, October, 1803, p. 699, for the conclusion, which is wanting, but unsuccessfully.
The only variation of much moment in the five versions of this tragedy is that, in C, the bridegroom and the lover are not brothers, but uncle and nephew. Some inconsistencies have been created in the course of tradition. The bride's insisting on having twenty men before her and twenty on each side, ere she will go to kirk, not to mention the extravagance of twenty milk-white doves above her head, C 22,[foot-note] is incompatible with her aversion to the "weary wedding," and with her language about the bridegroom's gifts in C 4, 5, D 4-6, E 8-10. There is much confusion at the end. After the death of the two rivals the lady, in E, imposes on herself the penance of begging her bread as a pilgrim for the rest of her days. This penance we find also in the two last stanzas of A, and a trace of it in B 20, D 10. Another, and probably later, representation is that she went mad, A 30, B 19, D 9. The two are blended in A, B, D; unless we are to suppose that Maisry's adopting a beggar's life was a consequence of her madness, which is not according to the simplicity of old ballads. That something was due the unfortunate Lord Ingram, especially if he was disposed to relinquish his wife to his brother, B 17, the modern sense of justice will admit; but that Maisry's remorse on account of the handsome wedding Ingram had given her should exceed her grief for Chiel Wyet, A 32, B 20, D 10, E 43, 44, is as little natural as romantic, and is only to be explained as an exhibition of imbecility, whether on her part or on the part of some reciter who gave that turn to the story. B confounds confusion by killing Maisry on the top of all.
The sword laid in bed between man and woman, B 14, E 30, as a sign or pledge of continence, does not occur often in popular ballads. We have it in 'Südeli,' Uhland, I, 275, No 121, st. 11, and in two of the Swedish forms of Grundtvig's 'Brud i Vaande,' Danmarks gamle Folkeviser, V, 345, No. 277, D, sts 26, 27, and Arwidsson, II, 248, No 132, sts 21, 22, 'Fru Margaretha.' In popular tales: Grimms, K. u. H. märchen, No 60; Asbjørnsen og Moe, Norske Folkeeventyr, No 3; II Pentamerone, I, 9; Hahn's Griechische Märchen, I, 171, No 122. In Norse poetry and saga: Völsunga saga, 27, Rafn, Fornaldar Sögur, I, 187; Sæmund's Edda, Sigurðarkviða, III, 65, Lüning, p. 401, Bugge (68), p. 259; Snorri's Edda, Hafniæ, 1848, I, 362, Skáldskaparmál, 41; Saxo Grammaticus, Book 9, p. 162 of the Frankfort edition of 1576; Gaungu-Hrólfs saga, 24, Fornaldar Sögur, III, 303. Further, in Orendel und Bríde, ed. Ettmüller, p. 46, XII, 49, 50; Wolfdietrich, von der Hagen's Heldenbuch, I, 236, st. 592; Tristan, ed. Michel, I, 88, v. 1768 ff, Scott's Sir Tristrem, III. 20; Amis and Amiloun, Weber's Metrical Romances, II, 417, v. 1163 ff; Aladdin in the Arabian Nights, J. Scott, IV 345.[foot-note]
Lord Wayets, in C 17, kicks up the table and sends the silver cup into the fire. Young Beichan takes the table with his foot and makes the cups and cans to flee, B 18, D 23, F 28, J 5, N 42, or makes the table flee, H 42; so the knight in 'Child Waters,' G 18, the baron in 'Child Maurice,' E, F, and the mother in 'Fair Mary of Wallington,' A, B. Kinmont Willie, st. 9, takes the table with his hand and gars the red wine spring on hie. The table, being of boards laid on trestles, would be easy to ding over or make flee. Being also narrow, it might be jumped over, and those in whose way it might be seem to have preferred to clear it in that fashion, at least out of Britain. So the Danish Lord Lovel on hearing of his love's death, spilling the mead or wine, Kristensen, II, No 20, A 6, B 10, C 3, D 4; Sir Peter in Afzelius, No 9, I, 50, Grundtvig, No 210, IV, 220, etc. The king in the Icelandic Ribbalds kvæði, to be sure, kicks the table away and spills the mead and wine, Íslenzk Fornkvæði, No 16, B 8, C 2, so that Lord Wayets, Young Beichan, and others may have taken their cue from that island. But against this we may put Hervarar saga, c. 3, Fornaldar Sögur, I, 516; Olafs saga hins Helga, c. 50, Keyser and Unger, p. 36; Grundtvig, Danmarks Folkeviser, No 11, A 23, No 13, B 18, G 15, I 16; etc. In 'Magnus Algotsøn,' Grundtvig, No 181, D 18, the bride jumps over the table and goes off with her old love; in Sušil's Bohemian ballads, No 135, p. 131, the bride jumps over four tables and on to a fifth to get at her first betrothed; in the Novella della Figlia del Re di Dacia, ed. Wesselofsky, p. 38, the duke jumps over the table to get to his wife; in a German ballad in Schröer's Ausflug nach Gottschee, p. 210 f, the bridegroom, who has lost the bride, jumps over the table to get out of the room as soon as possible; a French gentleman takes a vault over the table before him, Gautier, Les Épopées Françaises, I, 508, ed. 1865, and a lady in a ludicrous anecdote told in the Zimmerische Chronik, ed. Barack, 1881, II, 132 f. But Torello's wife, on the other hand, Decameron, X, 9, throws down the table which bars her way to her lord, and so does the steward in 'Sir Orfeo,' v. 576, ed. Zielke.[foot-note]
Ebbe Skammelsøn, being obliged to absent himself from his plighted maid for a considerable time, loses her through the artifices of his brother [and mother], who pretends first that Ebbe is unfaithful, and then that he is dead. Ebbe is warned by a dream that his brother is about to wed his mistress, goes home in great haste, and arrives on the wedding-day. He kills the bride, and then his brother, who, at the last moment, offers to cede the bride to him, as Lord Ingram, in B 17, says he meant to do. Ebbe after this begs his bread, or goes on a pilgrimage weighted with iron on his hands and loins; wherein his part resembles Maisry's. Danske Viser, III, 75, No 120, translated by Prior, II, 380; Arwidsson, No 33, I, 216, 224, 412; Atterbom's Poetisk Kalender, 1816, p. 55.
It may be worth noting that Maisry's wedding, according to B 20, was "in good kirk-door," like the five of The Wife of Bath.
Translated by Knortz, Lieder und Romanzen Alt-Englands, p. 166, No 44, after Allingham, p. 306.
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