Page:The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, Volume 01.djvu/24

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2. THE ELFIN KNIGHT

M, N. In the Stev, or alternate song, in Landstad, p. 375, two singers vie one with an- other in propounding impossible tasks.

A Wendish ballad, Haupt and Schmaler, I,

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178, No 151, and a Slovak, Celakowsky, ii, 68, No 12 (the latter translated by Wenzig, Slawische Volkslieder, p. 86, Westslavischer Marchenschatz, p. 221, and Bibliothek Sla- vischer Poesien, p. 126), have lost nearly all their story, and. like German K, L, may be called mere wit-contests.

The Graidhne whom we have seen winning Fionn for husbaiid by guessing his riddles, p. 3, afterwards became enamored of Diarmaid, Fionn's nephew, in consequence of her acci- dentally seeing a beauty spot on Diarmaid's forehead. This had the power of infecting with love any woman whose eye should light upon it : wherefore Diarmaid used to wear his cap well down. Graidhne tried to make Diai*- maid run away with her. But he said, "I will not go with thee. I will not take thee in soft- ness, and I will not take thee in hardness ; I ■will not take thee without, and I will not take thee within ; I will not take thee on horseback, and I will not take thee on foot." Then he ■went and built himself a house where he thought he should be out of her way. But Graidhne found him out. She took up a posi- tion between the two sides of the door, on a buck goat, and called to him to go with her. For, said she, "I am not without, I am not within ; I am not on foot, and I am not on a horse; and thou must go with me." After this Diarmaid had no choice. ' Diarmaid and Grainne,' Tales of the West Highlands, ill, 39-49 ; ' How Fingal got Graine to be his wife, and she went away with Diarmaid,' Heroic Gaelic Ballads, p. 153 ; ' The Death of Diarmaid,' ib., p. 154. The last two were written down c. 1774.

In all stories of the kind, the person upon whom a task is imposed stands acquitted, if another of no less difficulty is devised which must be performed first. This preliminary may be something that is essential for the ex-

ecution of the other, as in the German bal- lads, or equally well something that has no kind of relation to the original requisition, as in the English ballads.

An early form of such a story is preserved in Gesta Romanorum, c. 64, Oesterley, p. 374. It were much to be wished that search were made for a better copy, for, as it stands, this tale is to be interpreted only by the English ballad. The old English version. Madden, XLIII, p. 142, is even worse mutilated than the Latin. A king, who was stronger, wiser, and handsomer than any man, delayed, like the Marquis of Saluzzo, to take a wife. His friends urged him to marry, and he replied to their expostulations, " You know I am rich enough and powerful enough ; find me a maid who is good looking and sensible, and I will take her to wife, though she be poor." A maid was found who was eminently good looking and sensible, and of royal blood besides. The king wished to make trial of her sagacity, and sent her a bit of linen three inches square, with a promise to marry her if she would make him a shirt of this, of proper length and width. The lady stipulated that the king should send her " a vessel in which she could work," and she would make the shirt : " michi vas concedat in quo operari potero, et camisiam satis longam ei promitto." So the king sent " vas debitum et preciosum," the shirt was made, and the king married her.* It may be doubted whether the sagacious maid did not, in the unmutilated story, deal with the prob- lem as is done in a Transylvanian tale. Halt- rich, Deutsche Volksmarchen, u. s. w.. No 45, p. 245, where the king requires the maid to make a shirt and drawers of two threads. The maid, in this instance, sends the king a couple of broomsticks, requiring that he should first make her a loom and bobbin-wheel out of them.

The tale just cited, ' Der Burghiiter und seine kluge Tochter,' is one of several which have been obtained from tradition in this century, that link the ballads of The Clever Lass with oriental stories of great age. The

the ballad. — Much of what follows is derived from the ad- mirable Benfey's papers, ' Die klugo Dime, Die indischen
 * Grundtvig has noticed the resemblance of G. R. 64 and

Marchenvon den klugen Rathsell6sem,und ihre Verbreitung liber Asien und Europa,' Auslaud, 1859, p. 457,486, 511, 567, 589, in Nos 20, 21, 22, 24, 25.