E. M. Smith-Dampier

“ Above the wind as he wandereth?
The souls of the brave that have done with death!
Lords and ladies, fair and fine,
None of you see with these eyes of mine!
Prince and peer and potentate,
Never a man of you keeps my state!
Mockers that mock and cowards that crawl,
I have the laugh of you, one and all!
For fear and fraud, and lies and lust,
I doffed them all with the doleful dust,
And Death must bonnet his head to me—
The traitor that died on the gallows-tree!
Printed by Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury. ”

“ There stood the King o’ Danes, a-tarrying by the gate.
“Good greeting!” said Dalebo Jonsen.
“Hearken now, Sir Dalebo, and look thou tell to me!
Where are they, my champions, I sent of late to thee?
Tell me that, Sir Dalebo Jonsen!”
“Oh some of them are sick, and some of them are sore,
And some are lying still, to rise again no more,
That thou sentest to Dalebo Jonsen. ”

“ The witch-wife came to him.
“Now hearken to me, thou goodly knight!
And, if thou grant me grace,
I’ll work a spell shall serve thee well
For love of thy fair young face.
“Oh a maid am I from dawn till dusk—
But by night of a magic rune,
And a weird of woe, a wolf I go
O’ nights beneath the moon.{81}
“Thou shalt slay three hosts in Ironwood
That the wolf her fill may feed—
Then as lover true, when the fight is done,
Shalt pay the maiden’s meed.”
Sir Arngrim looked upon the witch,
And her face was fair to see. ”

“ It was Tyge Hermandsson did to the castle fare,
She stood without, the bonny bride, wrapped all in cloak of vair.
18
Oh, high she held her head, I wis, and spake with haughty cheer:
“Away with thee, Tyge Hermandsson, no welcome hast thou here!”
19
“Now lithe and listen, proud Liselil, this blame I have for thee,
Hast plighted troth with another man, so hast thou cozened me!”
20
“Harken, Tyge Hermandsson, this word I tell thee plain,
Never, ah, never I’ll wed the man dares not ride out in the rain! ”

“ There’s never a voice in the world but thine
Could call me from my rest.{56}”
’Twas at the hour before the dawn,
When hushed was every sound,
That the dead corpse stirred within the grave,
And rose up out o’ the ground—
Rose up, and stood in the wan moonlight
All in her winding-sheet—
Sir Herluin, he hid his face,
And lay still at her feet.
“Oh Herluin! oh Herluin!
Didst hold my heart in fee—
And the grave’s not deep nor wide enough
To sunder me and thee.”
“Margaret, oh Margaret!
Can love be strong as death?” ”

“ The people was one; it was the élite, the best among them, who interpreted what all felt, but all could not express—who sang in the name of all. And thus it is that this poetry belongs to the populace as a whole.... It resembles a stone constantly rolled by the waves” (Pineau) .
Child, moreover, points out that the British Ballad “was not originally the property of the common orders among the people”—and in Denmark, says Henderson, “it was fostered and favoured more particularly by the upper classes, and was for some centuries the chief medium of literary expression and culture.” ”

“ Darkness dissolved; the earth stole back to sight; and shrill
A cock crew far away; like tears the dew lay chill;
And Herluin raised his head, and saw the pallid gleam
Stand in the face of the East above the shimmering stream,{74}
While o’er him as he lay, half-mazed in a magic sweven,
The black pine-branches hovered like torn clouds hung in heaven.
Day stood upon the moor; and the wailing voice, withdrawn,
Sighed o’er the sobbing harp-strings, and died in the wind of dawn. ”

“ Men called me a mortal, till thus I yode
To seek thee out in thine abode.
Give me what the dwarfs have wrought—
Hiding it avails thee not.
Angantheow:
Never hand of sire nor kin
Laid me here, the howe within,
But the foeman two that I did not slay—
Tyrfing one of them bears to-day.{7}
Herwor:
See now that the truth thou tell!
May the grisly fiends of hell
Tear thee piecemeal from thy grave
If thou hast not there the glaive!
Slow thou art, I tell thee true,
To give thine only child her due!
Angantheow:
Hell-gate is opening—the graves gape wide! ”

“ This Ballad, indeed, brings down the story from the misty peaks of Valhalla into the garrulous region of fairy-tale. It is faithful to the primitive tradition which depicts the dead as waking unwillingly from their slumbers. ”

“ Tho’ thou art severed both from friends and kinsmen.”
They wrapped her in a cloak of red,
And lifted her on to Ranil’s steed,
Tho’ he was severed both from friends and kinsmen.
Nought for their bridal bower they found
But the wood and the wild and the low green ground—
So sorely was he severed from friends and kinsmen.
“If King Eric thou hadst not slain,
In the fair castles we might have lain—
Now we are severed both from friends and kinsmen.” ”

“ Like the moan of mourning waves the song of its sombre pines.
The minstrel’s out on the moor; while far and faint in the wind
Ring the bells of All Souls’ Eve in the town he has left behind.{67}
Beneath the sombre pine he has laid him down to sleep,
With his harp beside his head; and night grows dark and deep. ”

“ The hero, who in his Bersark blood-lust spares neither wife, maid, nor suckling—whose brother the sword is possessed by a demon—who has ranged the world in pursuit of revenge—ranges it again as a penitent pilgrim, bound, for the heavier penance, in iron chains. Since, however, the Ballads concern themselves little with ecclesiastical orthodoxy, the penance is depicted as ending, not at any saintly shrine, but at the grave of his enemy. ”

“ Whose streets are paved with gold;
And out o’ the North my friends came forth
That gift to have and hold.
There was one who rode before us a’
From Perth to Preston town,
Wi’ winsome word and shining sword,
To gain a golden crown. ”

“ I ask it, Sir Dalebo Jonsen.”
“Ah, Dalebo, ah, Dalebo, and wilt thou work me woe?
Never for all the world would I sell thee to thy foe—
I sold thee not, Dalebo Jonsen.”
He drew his shining sword, and struck her where she stood,
And all so small he hewed her as the beech-leaves in the wood—
“Lie thou there!” said Dalebo Jonsen.
Sir Dalebo he mounted his steed of dapple-grey,
And forth he galloped faster than a bird that flies away—
For wroth was Sir Dalebo Jonsen.{43}
Sir Dalebo has ridden to the castle fair and great ”

“ On the restoration of the Thunderer’s hammer hangs the fate of the Æsir in their endless warfare with the Frost Giants; its loss is a calamity such as was never known in heaven nor earth. When Freyja is asked to play the Bride, her stamp shakes the celestial floor. When Thor drives to the wedding feast, earth burns under his chariot wheels. Whereas the Thord of the Ballad might, for aught we are told, be a mere bonnet-laird; and it is only by implication that we gather any idea of his hammer’s importance. ”

“ Oh, I came forth fra’ the naked North
Wi’ lord and loon and laird—
And a’ the gold they gave to me
Was the straw in Newgate yard.
The sun comes glinting thro’ the reek
And gilds my galling chain;
Oh, our lives are sold for fairy-gold,
And glamour is a’ our gain!
Oh, I’d give my heart fra’ out of my breast,
Or the fell fra’ my flesh, to see
One little star of a’ the stars
That shine on mine own countrie!
The wheels they groan on the paving stone—
And I dream that their dreary din
Is the song o’ the burn afar in the fern,
Or the wind that wails in the whin. ”

“ While thou, King Erik, didst bide at home to ravish my fair young wife!”
12
“Harken now, Sir Marstig, and be not wroth with me!
Seven castles in Sælland, all will I give to thee.”
13
“Seven castles in Sælland will never ’suage my shame;
Know thou, King of Denmark, dearer I hold my dame!
14
“Harken, King of Denmark, and heed the words I say:
No fealty shalt thou have of me until my dying day!”
—The lady she sits in Sælland, and weeps right woefully. ”

“ And clove him to the chin—
“Short shrift at least is thine, proud priest,
Thy God His grace to win!”
Alas! alas! for the bloody chrism
The king’s son got that day!
For the queen fell down at the self-same stroke
Nor turned not where she lay.
He’s seized his young son in his arms,
And busked his steed to flee;
Like a crooked shadow the grisly witch
Runs ever beside his knee.
With laughter shrill she’s by him still
While the misty moon grows dim—
Ere he can cross the running burn
She’s reft the babe from him. ”

“ When the heart has ceased to beat, and the blood has ceased to flow.{71}
“Ay, strange to the shuddering soul, when the heart has ceased to beat,
And it sees the wan corse lie, unheeding at its feet!—
“I hear a rush in the firs, a rush as of hastening horse—
Like the forelocks of fiery steeds the branches waver and toss.
“See, see where Odin’s war-maids to choose the dead draw nigh!
They come with the shout o’ the storm along the scurrying sky. ”

“ Generally speaking, it is acknowledged that Denmark’s literary output was influenced far less by Britain than by France and the other Latin countries.
But, be the themes what they may, the Danish Ballads inform them with their own characteristic spirit—the glamour and grimness of the North. The battle-scenes show us glimpses of Bersark fury, and weapons with demon souls. The Dark Powers in the Ballads of magic are those born of long winter nights and misty waters. Here and there we meet with the gods of Valhalla, and the heroes sung in Old Norse Lays. ”

“ Forth he flew to Norrefjeld, all over the salt sea-swell.
4
All in the castle-garth his garment changèd he,
Then entered in the stone-built hall, the Giant-King to see.
5
“Now welcome, little Loki, be thou right welcome here!
How fares the country round Hafsgaard, and the land that lies anear?”
6
“Well fares the country round Hafsgaard, and the land that lies anear,
But Thord hath lost his hammer of gold, and therefore am I come here.”
7
“Never shall Thord have his hammer again, altho’ ye seek and strive!
Under the earth ’tis buried deep, full fifty fathom and five! ”

“ Red as the ruddy gold, the sun sets over Trondhjem.
{7} SIR KARL’S LYKEWAKE
It was young Sir Karel,
His mother’s rede did pray
If he should to the convent ride,
And bear his love away.
(The roses and the lilies all a-blowing.)
“Lo, on a bier thou’lt lay thee down,
A corse so white and wan—
And never a one shall ask of thee
If thou art a living man.” ”

“ Say, wilt thou come to be true-love o’ mine?”
“Away with thee, thou gipsy! I scorn thy words so free!
Counts and mighty princes have come a-wooing me!”
“Good sooth, I am no gipsy, tho’ thou biddest me begone;
I am the proudest king’s son that e’er the sun shone on.{25}
“I have goodly acres, and fields so fair and broad;
I have serving maidens, who shall spread thy board.
“I have a goodly garden of herbs a-growing green,
Where thou, my love, shalt wander, out and in.
“I have three dappled palfreys a-tossing of their crest,
That thou and I, my sweetheart, may ride among the best.” ”

“ The bride rode in with glad array
22
They poured the mead and they poured the wine:
“Now where is Sir Oluf, dear bridegroom mine?”
23
“Sir Oluf is in the mead
A-proving hound and steed.”
24
“Oh, doth he love hound and horse of pride
Better than he loves his bride?”
25
She sought him alow, she sought him aloft,
She found Sir Oluf sleeping soft. [119]
26
She lifted the cloak of scarlet red,
There lay Sir Oluf, was cold and dead.
27
She kissed him in the bridal-bower,
She died herself the self-same hour. ”

“ Dead, they are dead, the gods in whom we have put our trust;
The hopes of heroes’ hearts are ashes and dross and dust.
“We have seen our flesh the sport of the crows and the creeping things—
We have seen the moss and the lichen grow over the bones of kings—
“The firs from us have fed their writhen boughs and thin
Our burning blood springs up in the cold green sap o’ the whin—
“A whirl of withered leaves in the desolate land of death,
Such are our haughty hosts, and our foes are wind and breath.{73}
“I found in thy harp a voice ”