“ Be woe my lot or be it joy, thou wouldst restore my daughter."
And forth at midnight hour he fares, the silent tomb deserting,
He makes the cloud his flying steed, he makes the star his bridle,
And by the silver moon convoyed, to bring her home he journeys:
And finds her combing down her locks, abroad by silvery moonlight,
And greets the maiden from afar, and from afar bespeaks her.
"Arise, my Aretula dear, for thee our mother longeth."
"Alas! my brother, what is this? what wouldst at such an hour? ”

“ While upon this point let me make the warmest acknowledgments for the help received from Grundtvig's Ancient Popular Ballads of Denmark (Danmarks Gamle Folkeviser) , a work which has no equal in its line, and which may in every way serve as a model for collections of National Ballads. Such a work as Grundtvig's can only be imitated by an English editor, never equalled, for the material is not at hand. All Denmark seems to have combined to help on his labors ”

“ Lastly, we find the legends of the horn and the mantle united, as in the German ballad Die Ausgleichung, (Des Knaben Wunderhorn, i. 389,) and in the English ballad of The Boy and The Mantle, where a magical knife is added to the other curiosities. All three of these, by the way, are claimed by the Welsh as a part of the insignia of Ancient Britain, and the special property of Tegau Eurvron, the wife of Caradog with the strong arm. (Jones, Bardic Museum, p. 49.)
In other departments of romance, many other objects are endowed with the same or an analogous virtue. ”

“ From A Collection of Old Ballads, i. 266. In Moore's Pictorial Book of Ancient Ballad Poetry (p. 463) is a copy from a broadside in the Roxburghe collection.
The Suffolk Miracle has an external resemblance to several noble ballads, but the likeness does not extend below the surface. It is possible that we have here the residuum of an old poem, from which all the beauty and spirit have been exhaled in the course of tradition; but as the ballad now exists, it is a vulgar ghost-story, without any motive. ”

“ The Famous Historie of the Seven Champions of Christendom, is the work of Richard Johnson, a ballad maker of some note at the end of the 16th and beginning of the 17th century. All that is known of him may be seen in Chappel's Introduction to the Crown Garland of Golden Roses, of which Johnson was the compiler or the author. (Percy Society, vol. vi.) "The Story of St. George and the Fair Sabra," says Percy, "is taken almost verbatim from the old poetical legend of Sir Bevis of Hampton." ”

“ Remembering the instructions of the Warluck Merlin, "Burd Ellen," said Child Rowland, "I will neither taste nor touch till I have set thee free!" Immediately the folding-doors burst open with tremendous violence, and in came the king of Elfland,
"With 'fi, fi, fo, and fum!
I smell the blood of a Christian man!
Be he dead, be he living, wi' my brand
40 I'll clash his harns frae his harn-pan!'"
"Strike, then, Bogle of Hell, if thou darest!" ”

“ The Warluck Merlin gave him all necessary instructions for his journey and conduct, the most important of which were, that he should kill every person he met with after entering the land of Fairy, and should neither eat nor drink of what was offered him in that country, whatever his hunger or thirst might be; for if he tasted or touched in Elfland, he must remain in the power of the Elves, and never see middle eard again. ”

“ The ane a duke, the second a knight,
And third a laird o' lands sae free."
THE WIFE OF USHER'S WELL. Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, iii. 258.
That the repose of the dead is disturbed by the immoderate grief of those they have left behind them, is a belief which finds frequent expression in popular ballads. Obstinate sorrow rouses them from their grateful slumber; every tear that is shed for them wets their shroud; they can get no rest, and are compelled to revisit the world they would fain forget, to rebuke and forbid the mourning that destroys their peace. ”

“ George is Jacobus a Voragine (died 1298) , in the Golden Legend. Of course it does not follow that the story originated there. It is probable that the legend of the Dragon arose at the time of the Crusades, and indeed was partly occasioned by them, though we ought not hastily to admit, what has been suggested, that it was founded upon some tradition which the Crusaders heard in Syria.
The Byzantians had long before ascribed various miracles to St. George, but it was the Normans, who, so to say, first pressed him into active military service. ”

“ The following rhymed legend, which, like several other pieces in this Book, can be called a ballad only by an objectionable, though common, extension of the term, was printed by Percy (with some alterations) from two "ancient" black-letter copies in the Pepys collection.
Real popular ballads on St. George's victory over the Dragon exist in several languages, though not in English. [2] Such a ballad is known to have been sung by the Swedes at the battle of Brunkeberg in 1471, and one is still sung by the people both of Denmark and Sweden. ”

“ They contain all but two or three of the ancient ballads of England and Scotland, and nearly all those ballads which, in either country, have been gathered from oral tradition,—whether ancient or not. Widely different from the true popular ballads, the spontaneous products of nature, are the works of the professional ballad-maker, which make up the bulk of Garlands and Broadsides. ”

“ THE ELPHIN KNIGHT. (See p. 128.)
"The following transcript is a literal copy from the original in the Pepysian library, Cambridge." Motherwell's Minstrelsy, Appendix, p. i.
"A Proper New Ballad, entituled, The Wind hath blown my Plaid away, or, A Discourse betwixt a young Maid and the Elphin-Knight; To be sung with its own pleasant New Tune."
The Elphin Knight site on yon hill,
Ba, ba, ba, lilli ba,
He blowes his horn both loud and shril,
The wind hath blown my plaid awa.
5 He blowes it East, he blowes it West,
Ba, ba, &c.
He blowes it where he lyketh best. ”

“ The tree is an enchanted damsel, one of eleven children transformed by a step-mother into various less troublesome things, and the spell can be removed only by a kiss from the king's son. By the intervention of the maiden, this rite is performed, and the beautiful linden is changed to as beautiful a young woman, who of course becomes the [Pg 312] prince's bride. A Wendish ballad resembling the German is given by Haupt and Schmaler, and ballads akin to the Danish, are found in Slovensk and Lithuanian (see Grundtvig) . ”

“ Brandimarte, with much reluctance, fulfils the bizarre conditions of the adventure; and the monster is instantly changed into a beautiful Fairy, who loads her deliverer with benefits."
[Pg 138] Jomfruen i Ormeham, in Grundtvig's Danmarks Gamle Folkeviser, ii. 177, is essentially the same ballad as Kempion. The characteristic incident of the story (a maiden who has been transformed by her step-mother into a snake or other monster, being restored to her proper shape by the kiss of a knight) is as common in the popular fiction of the North as Scott asserts it to be in chivalrous romance. ”

“ Numerous copies of the Scandinavian ballad have been given to the world: seven Danish versions, more or less complete, four Norse, nine Swedish, one Faroish, and some other fragments (Grundtvig, ii. 37, and note, p. 655) . One of the Swedish ballads (Bergkonungen, Afzelius, No. 35) is translated in Keightley's Fairy Mythology, 103, under the title of Proud Margaret. Closely related is Agnete og Havmanden, Grundtvig, ii. 48, 656, which is found in several forms in German (e.g. Die schöne Hannele in Hoffmann von Fallersleben's Schlesische Volkslieder, No. 1) , and two in Slavic. ”

“ Robert Bikez tells us that he learned his story from an abbot, and that "noble ecclesiast" stood [Pg 4] but one further back in a line of tradition which curiosity will never follow to its source. We shall content ourselves with noticing the most remarkable cases of the use of these and similar talismans in imaginative literature.
In the Roman de Tristan, a composition of unknown antiquity, the frailty of nearly all the ladies at the court of King Marc is exposed by their essaying a draught from the marvellous horn, (see the English Morte Arthur, Southey's ed. i. 297.) ”

“ It is doubtless one of those stories in which an ancient mythic romance has undergone the series of modifications I have been describing; a legend which had become located by popular traditions in the neighbourhood we are now visiting, in which the contests between northern chieftains are changed into tilts and tournaments, but in which the combats with dragons and giants are still preserved. ”

“ This manuscript is understood to be in the hands of a dealer who is keeping it from the public in order to enhance its value. The greatest service that can now be done to English Ballad-literature is to publish this precious document. Civilization has made too great strides in the island of Great [Pg xii] Britain for us to expect much more from tradition.
Certain short romances which formerly stood in the First Book, have been dropped from this second Edition, in order to give the collection a homogeneous character. ”

“ Laing, "is preserved in three ancient manuscripts, each of them in a state more or less mutilated, and varying in no inconsiderable degree from the others. A portion of it was first printed in the Border Minstrelsy, [iv. 122,] from the fragment in the British Museum, among the Cotton MSS.; and the one which Mr. Jamieson adopted in his collection of Popular Ballads and Songs [ii. 11,] was carefully deciphered from a volume of no ordinary curiosity, in the University Library, Cambridge, written in a very illegible hand, about the middle of the 15th century. ”

“ Come back to me, and ye'll get your sark."
"I'll not quite my plaid for my life;
It haps my seven bairnes and my wife."
"My maidenhead I'll then keep still,
40 Let the Elfin knight do what he will.
"My plaid awa, my plaid away,
And owre the hills and far awa,
And far awa to Norowa',
My plaid shall not be blawn awa."
33, thou must.
[Pg 131]
THE BROOMFIELD HILL.
A fragment of this ballad was printed in Herd's Collection, ("I'll wager, I'll wager," i. 226.) The present version is from the Border Minstrelsy, (iii. 28,) and we have added another from Kinloch's Ancient Scottish Ballads. ”

“ This agrees with the ancient and more legitimate idea of Fairies. JAMIESON. See p. 120, v. 131, et seq.
[Pg 171]
THE EARL OF MAR'S DAUGHTER. From Buchan's Ancient Ballads and Songs of the North of Scotland, (i. 49.)
It is much to be regretted that this piece has not come down to us in a purer and more ancient form. Similar ballads are found in Danish, Swedish, and Faroish. Several forms of the Danish are given by Grundtvig (Ridderen i Fugleham, No. 68) , who also cites many popular tales which have the same basis, e.g. the Countess d'Aulnoy's fairy story of The Blue Bird. ”

“ If by Estmere Crags we are to understand the rocky cliffs of Northumberland, in opposition to Westmoreland, we may bring our scene of action near Bamborough, and thereby almost identify the tale of Kempion with that of the Laidley Worm of Spindleston, to which it bears so strong a resemblance.—SCOTT. But why should we seek to do this? ”

“ THE WEE WEE MAN.
This ballad will be found, in forms slightly varying, in Herd, (i. 156;) Caw's Poetical Museum, (p. 348;) Motherwell's Minstrelsy, (p. 343;) and Buchan's Ancient Ballads, (i. 263.) It bears some resemblance to the beginning of the remarkable poem, Als Y Yod on ay Mounday, (see Appendix) . The present version is from the Poetical Museum. ”

“ Whatever may have been the name of the original hero, that which he now bears, Guy, is a French name, and could not have been given till Norman times.
"From the Anglo-Norman poem, so great was its popularity, two or three different English metrical versions were made, which are still found in manuscripts, and the earliest of which, that of the well-known Auchinlech manuscript, has been printed in a very expensive form by one of the Scottish Antiquarian clubs. ”

“ The traditional commentary upon this ballad informs us, that the apple was the produce of the fatal Tree of Knowledge, and that the garden was the terrestrial paradise. The repugnance of Thomas to be debarred the use of falsehood, when he might find it convenient, has a comic effect. ”

“ Horn and Rimnild (Ritson, Metrical Romances, iii. 301,) as well as in one or two ballads in this collection, the stone of a ring; in a German ballad, Die Krone der Königin von Afion, (Erlach, Volkslieder der Deutschen, i. 132,) a golden crown, that will fit the head of no incontinent husband. Without pretending to exhaust the subject, we may add three instances of a different kind: the Valley in the romance of Lancelot, which being entered by a faithless lover would hold him imprisoned forever ”

“ Again, in the tale of Zeyn Alasman and the King of the Genii, in the Arabian Nights, the means of proof is a mirror, that reflects only the image of a spotless maiden; in that of the carpenter and the king's daughter, in the Gesta Romanorum, (c. 69,) a shirt, which remains clean and whole as long as both parties are true; in Palmerin of England, a cup of tears, which becomes dark in the hands of an inconstant lover; in the Fairy Queen, the famous girdle of Florimel ”