The only English copy of this ballad that approaches completeness is furnished by the Percy manuscript, A. Sir Walter Scott remembered, and communicated to Kirkpatrick Sharpe, three stanzas, and half of the burden, of another version, B. The English hallad speaks only of a maid, who does not appear to be any particular person, and of a mysterious palmer, who seems authorized to impose on the sinner certain penances, but whose identity is not declared. In the Scandinavian versions, as well as in a Finnish version, their true characters are seen. In all of these the story of the woman of Samaria (John, iv) is blended with mediaeval traditions concerning Mary Magdalen, who is assumed to be the same with the woman "which was a sinner," in Luke, vii, 37, and also with Mary, sister of Lazarus. This is the view of the larger part of the Latin ecclesiastical writers, while most of the Greeks distinguish the three. It was reserved for ballads, says Grundtvig, to confound the Magdalen with the Samaritan woman. The names Maria, or Magdalena, Jesus, or Christ, are found in most of the Scandinavian ballads. There are several Slavic ballads which blend the story of the Samaritan woman and that of 'The Cruel Mother,' without admixture of the Magdalen. The popular ballads of some of the southern nations give us the legend of the Magdalen uncombined.
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