2. THE ELFIN KNIGHT
PiNKERTON gave the first information con- cerning A, in Ancient Scotish Poems . . . from the MS. collections of Sir Richard Mait- lanil, etc., ii, 496, and he there printed the first and last stanzas of the broadside. Moth- erwell printed the whole in the appendix to his Minstrelsy, No I. What stands as the last stanza in the broadside is now prefixed to the ballad, as having been the original burden. It is the only example, so far as I remember, which our ballads afford of a burden of this kind, one that is of greater extent than the stanza with which it was sung, though this kind of burden seems to have been common enough with old songs and carols.*
The " old copy in black letter" used for B •was close to A, if not identical, and has the burden-stem at the end like A. ' The Jock- ey's Lamentation,' Pills to Purge Melancholy, V, 317, has the burden,
'T is oer the hills and far away [^Ance], The wind hath blown my plaid away.
The ' Bridal Sark,' Cromek's Remains of Nithsdale and Galloway Song, p. 108, and ' The Bridegroom Darg,' p. 113, are of mod- em manufacture and impostures ; at least, they seem to have imposed upon Cromek.
A like ballad is very common in German. A man would take, or keep, a woman for his love or his wife [servant, in one case], if she would spin brown silk from oaten straw. She will do this if he wnll make clothes for her of the linden-leaf. Then she must brins him shears from the middle of the Rhine. But
first he must build her a bridtje from a single twig, etc., etc. To this effect, with some va- riations in the tasks set, in A, 'Eitle Dinge,' Rhaw, Bicinia (1545), Uhland, i, 14, No 4 A, Bohme, p. 376, No 293. B. 'Van ideln unmoglichen Dingen,' Nfeocorus (f c. 1630), Chronik des Landes Ditmarschen, ed. Dahl- mann, p. 180 = Uhland, p. 15, No 4 B, Mul- leidiof, p. 473, Bohme, p. 370, No 294. C. Wunderhorn, ii, 410 [431] =Erlach, i, 441, slightly altered in Kretzschmer [Zuccalma- glio], II, 620. D. ' Unmbgllchkeiten,' Schmel- ler, Die Muiidarten Bayerns,^p. 556. E. Schle- sische Volkslieder, p. 115, No 93. P. 'Liebes- Neckerei,' Meier, Schwiibische V. L., p. 114, No 39. G. ' Liebesspielereien,' Ditfurth, Friinkische V. L., ii, 109, No 144. H. ' Von eitel unmoglichen Dingen,' Erk's Liederhort, p. 337, No 152^ I. ' Unmogliches Begehr- en,' V. L. aus Oesterreich, Deutsches Mu- seum, 1802, II, 806, No 16. J. ' Unmog- liche Dinge,' Peter, Volksthiimliches aus Osterreichisch-Schlesicn, I, 270, No 82. In K, ' Wettgesang,' Meinert, p. 80, and L, Liederhort, p. 334, No 152, there is a simple contest of wits between a youth and a maid, and in M, Erk, Neue Sammluiig, II. 2, No 11, p. 16, and N, ' Wunderbare Aufgaben,' Prcilile, Weltliche u. geistliche Volkslieder, p. 36, No 22 B, the wit-contest is added ,to the very insipid ballad of ' Gemalte Rosen.'
' Store Fordringar,' Kristensen, Jydske Folkeviser, i, 221, No 82, and ' Opsang,' Lindeman, Norske Fjeldmelodier, No 35 (Text Bilag, p. 6), closely resemble German
- All that was required of the burden, Mr Chappell kindly
writes me, was to support the voice by harmonious notes under the melody ; it was not sung after each half of the stanza, or after the stanza, and it was heard separately only when the voices singing the air stopped. Even the Danish ballads exhibit but a few cases of these " burden-stems," as Grundtvig calls them : see Danmarks Gamle Folkeviser, II, 221, B 1 ; 293, B 1 ; 393, A 1 : in, 197, D; 470, A. Such burden-stems are, however, very common in Icelandic ballads. They are, for the most^part, of a different metre from the ballad, and very often not of the same number of lines as the ballad stanza. A part of the burden stem would seem to be taken for the refrain; as Islenzk FornkvietJi, i, 30, of four verses, 1, 2, 4 ; 129, of two, the last half of the first and all the second; 194, of four, the last; 225, of five, the last two ; ii, 52, of five, the second and last two.
In later times the Danish stev-stamme was made to con-
form to the metre of the ballad, and sung as the first stanza, the last line perhaps forming the burden. Compare the stev- stamme, Grundtvig, iii, 470, with the first stanza of the bal- lad at p. 475. If not so changed, says Grundtvig, it dropped away. Lyngbye, at the end of his Fseroiske Qvaeder, gives the music of a ballad which he had heard sung. The whole stem is sung first, and then repeated as a burden at the end of every verse. The modern way, judging by Bcrggreen, Folke-Sange og Melodier, 3d ed., i,352, 358, is simply to sing the whole stem after each verse, and so says Grundtvig, in, 200, D. The whole stem is appended to the last stanza (where, as usual, the burden, which had been omitted after stanza 1, is again expressed) in the Fieroe ballad in Grundt- vig, III, 199, exactly as in our broadside, or in Motherwell's Minstrelsy, Appendix, p. iii. I must avow myself to be very much in the dark as to the exact relation of stem and bur- den.
