This ballad is mixed with 'Sir Patrick Spens' (No, 58). By far the most interesting feature in it is Allan's addressing his ship and the ship's intelligent behavior. Such ships are known elsewhere in popular tradition. In one of the best of the Danish ballads (Grundtvig, No, 50), the Ox, when sailed by St. Olav, responds to his commands as if fully endowed with consciousness; he thwacks it in the side and over the eye, and it goes faster and faster; but it is animate only for the nonce. The Phasacian ships have neither helmsman nor helm, and know men's minds and the way to all cities: Odyssey, viii, 557 ff. There is a magical self-moving ship in Marie de France's Guigemar, and elsewhere.
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