WALDEMAR’S CHASE.
The following Ballad is merely a versification of one of the many feats of Waldemar, the famed phantom hunter of the North, an account of whom, and of Palnatoka and Groon the Jutt, both spectres of a similar character, may be found in Thiele’s Danské Folkesagn.
Late at eve they were toiling on Harribee bank,
For in harvest men ne’er should be idle:
Towards them rode Waldemar, meagre and lank,
And he linger’d and drew up his bridle.
“Success to your labour; and have ye to night
Seen any thing pass ye, while reaping?”
“Yes, yes;” said a peasant, “I saw something white,
Just now, through the corn-stubble creeping.”
“Which way did it go?” “Why methought to the beach.”
Then off went Waldemar bounding;
A few minutes after, they heard a faint screech,
And the horn of the hunter resounding.
Then back came he, laughing in horrible tone,
And the blood in their veins ran the colder,
When they saw that a fresh-slaughter’d mermaid was thrown
Athwart his proud barb’s dappled shoulder.
Said he, “I have chas’d her for seven score years,
As she landed to drink at the fountains.”
No more did he deign to their terrified ears,
But gallop’d away to the mountains.
THE MERMAN.
FROM THE OLD DANISH.
“Do thou, dear Mother, contrive amain
How Marsk Stig’s daughter I may gain.”
She made him, of water, a noble steed,
Whose trappings were form’d from rush and reed.
To a young knight chang’d she then her son;
To Mary’s church at full speed he’s gone.
His foaming horse to the gate he bound,
And pac’d the church full three times round:
When in he walk’d with his plume on high,
The dead men gave from their tombs a sigh:
The priest heard that, and he clos’d his book;
“Methinks yon knight has a strange wild look.”
Then laugh’d the maiden beneath her sleeve;
“If he were my husband I should not grieve.”
He stepp’d over benches one and two:
“O, Marsk Stig’s daughter, I doat on you.”
He stepp’d over benches two and three:
“O, Marsk Stig’s daughter, come home with me.”
Then said the maid, without more ado,
“Here take my troth, I will go with you.”
They went from the church a bridal train,
And danc’d so gaily across the plain;
They danc’d till they came to the strand, and then
They were forsaken by maids and men.
“Now, Marsk Stig’s daughter, sit down and rest;
To build a boat I will do my best.”
He built a boat of the whitest sand,
And away they went from the smiling land;
But when they had cross’d the ninth green wave,
Down sunk the boat to the ocean cave!
I caution ye, maids, as well as I can,
Ne’er give your troth to an unknown man.
THE DECEIVED MERMAN.
FROM THE OLD DANISH.
Fair Agnes alone on the sea-shore stood,
Then rose a Merman from out the flood:
“Now, Agnes, hear what I say to thee,
Wilt thou my leman consent to be?”
“O, freely that will I become,
If thou but take me beneath the foam.”
He stopp’d her ears, and he stopp’d her eyes,
And into the ocean he took his prize.
The Merman’s leman was Agnes there,—
She bore him sons and daughters fair:
One day by the cradle she sat and sang,
Then heard she above how the church bells rang:
She went to the Merman, and kiss’d his brow;
“Once more to church I would gladly go.”
“And thou to church once more shalt go,
But come to thy babes back here below.”
He flung his arm her body around,
And he lifted her up unto England’s ground.
Fair Agnes in at the church door stepp’d,
Behind her mother, who sorely wept.
“O Agnes, Agnes, daughter dear!
Where hast thou been this many a year?”
“O, I have been deep, deep under the sea,
And liv’d with the Merman in love and glee.”
“And what for thy honour did he give thee,
When he made thee his leman beneath the sea?”
“He gave me silver, he gave me gold,
And sprigs of coral my hair to hold.”
The Merman up to the church door came;
His eyes they shone like a yellow flame;
His face was white, and his beard was green—
A fairer demon was never seen.
“Now, Agnes, Agnes, list to me,
Thy babes are longing so after thee.”
“I cannot come yet, here must I stay
Until the priest shall have said his say.”
And when the priest had said his say,
She thought with her mother at home she’d stay.
“O Agnes, Agnes, list to me,
Thy babes are sorrowing after thee.”
“Let them sorrow, and sorrow their fill,
But back to them never return I will.”
“Think on them, Agnes, think on them all;
Think on the great one, think on the small.”
“Little, O little, care I for them all,
Or for the great one, or for the small.”
O, bitterly then did the Merman weep;
He hied him back to the foamy deep:
But, often his shrieks and mournful cries,
At midnight’s hour, from thence arise.