Axel Thordson and Fair Valborg: a ballad

Transcribed from the 1913 Thomas J. Wise pamphlet by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org. Many thanks to Norfolk and Norwich Millennium Library, UK, for kindly supplying the images from which this transcription was made.
by GEORGE BORROW
London: printed for private circulation 1913
Copyright in the United States of America by Houghton , Mifflin & Co. for Clement Shorter .
At the wide board at tables play, With pleasure and with glee abounding The ladies twain in fair array, The game they play is most astounding.
How fly about the dies so small, Such sudden turnings are they making; And so does Fortune’s wheel withal, We scarcely know the route ’tis taking.
Dame Julli grand, and Malfred Queen, At tables were their time employing; Not distant on the floor was seen A child with pear and apple toying.
Upon the floor the child it walked, It played with apples and with flowers; Then in Sir Axel Thordson stalked, Was bound for Rome’s imperial towers.
He greets the Dames repeatedly, At courtesy he had no master; He loved the child in secrecy, But fate had doomed them much disaster.
His eyeballs brimming full of tears Full tenderly her cheek he patted: “O would thou wast of fitting years, With Axel Thordson to be mated!”
Answered his youngest sister straight, Thus answered she her gallant brother: “Though she this night to woman’s state Had won, ye might not wed each other.”
Answered the Damsel’s mother high, And she the simple truth has stated: “A worthy pair I don’t deny, But, oh! ye are too near related.”