Page:The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, Volume 01.djvu/30

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2. THE ELFIN KNIGHT

dragon (Halm, Gviechische u. Albanesisclie jMiirchen, n, 210), the Russian rusalka, the Servian vila,* the Indian rakshas. Foi' exam- ple : a rusalka (water-nymph) pursues a pretty girl, and says, I will give you three riddles: if you guess them, I will let you go home to 3-our father ; if you do not, I shall take you with me. What grows without a root ? What runs without any object ? What blooms without any flower ? She answers, Stones grow with- out a root ; water runs without any object ; the fern blooms without any flower. These an- swers seem satisfactory, as riddles go, but the ballad concludes (with an injustice due to cor- ruption?), "The girl did not guess the rid- dles: the rusalka tickled her to death." (Woj- cicki, Piesni, I, 205.) A rakshas (ogre) says he will spare a man's life if he can answer four questions, and shall devour him if he cannot. What is cruel ? What is most to the advan- tage of a householder ? What is love ? What best accomplishes dithcult things ? These ques- tions the man answers, and confirms his an- swers by tales, and gains the rakshas' good will. (Jacob, Hindoo Tales, or the Adven- tures of Ten Princes, a translation of the San- skrit Dasakumaracharitam, p. 260 ff.)

The auld man in J is simply the " unco knicht" of 1 C, D, over again. He has clearly displaced the elf-knight, for the elf's attributes of hill-haunting and magical music remain, only they have been transferred to the lady. That the devil should supplant the knight, unco or familiar, is natural enough. He may come in as the substitute of the elfin knight because the devil is the regular successor to any heathen sprite, or as the embodiment of craft

and duplicity, and to give us the pleasure of seeing him outwitted. We find the devil giv- ing riddles, as they are called (tasks), in the Grimms' K. u. H. marchen, No 125 (see also the note in vol. iii) ; Prohle's K. u. V. mar- chen. No 19 ; Vernaleken, Oesterreichische K. u. H. marchen, No 37. He also appears as a riddle-monger in one of the best stories in the Golden Legend. A bishop, who was es- pecially devoted to St Andrew, was tempted by Satan under the semblance of a beautiful woman, and was all but lost, when a loud knocking was heard at the door. A pilgrim demanded admittance. The lady, being asked her pleasure about this, recommended that three questions should be put to the stranger, to show whether he were fit to appear in such presence. Two questions having been an- swered unexceptionably, the fiend proposed a third, which was meant to be a clincher: How far is it from earth to heaven ? " Go back to him that sent you," said the pilgrim (none oth- er than St Andrew) to the messenger, " and say that he himself knows best, for he meas- ured the distance when he fell." Antiquus hos- tis de medio evanuit. INIuch the same is re- lated in the legend of St Bartholomew, and, in a Slovenian ballad, of St Ulrich, who inter- poses to save the Pope from espousing Satan in disguise. f

J, K, L, have completely lost sight of the original story.

Translated, after A, C, and D, in Grundt- vig's Engelske og skotske Folkeviser, p. 251 ; E.. Warrens, Schottische Lieder der Vorzeit, p. 8; Knortz, Lieder u. Romanzen Alt-Englands, No 54.

ture, I, 25. The poludnitsa seems to belong to the same class: Afanasief, in, 76; Ralston, Songs of the Russian People, p. 147.
 * Afanasief, Poetic Views of the Slavonians about Na-

t The legend of St Andrew in Legenda Aurea, Grasse, cap. II, 9, p. 19 ff ; also in the Fornsvenskt Lei^endarium, I, 143 ff; Zambrini, Leggende Inedite, 11, 94 ff; Pitre', Canti pop. Siciliani, 11, 2.32 ff: that of St Bartholomew, Grasse, p. 545, cap. cxxiii, 5, and in a German Passional,

Mone's Anzeiger, 1839, viii, col. 319 f : that of St Ulrich in Achazel and Korytko, i, 76, ' Sve'ti Ureh,' translated by A. Griin, Volkslieder aus Krain, p. 136 ff. The third question and answer are in all the same. St Serf also has the credit of having baffled the devil by answering occult questions in divinity : Wintown's Scottish Chronicle, i, 131, v, 1238 ff, first pointed out by Motherwell, Minstrelsy, p. Ixxiv, who besides cites the legend of St Andrew.