Now Hielm has got the horn!
"God pity us poor peasants gray,
That Glipping e'er did reign:
Alas, that he was ever born
To be the peasants' bane!"
This ballad the stern marsk himself heard a young peasant-girl singing, one fair morning in the beginning of May, while, mounted on his war-steed, he was surveying with pride the strong defences, to which a few peasants and prisoners of war were still engaged in dragging the last stones.
One of the strongest workmen on the walls was a stalwart old man, in a worn-out leathern harness, who, notwithstanding the presence of the marsk, had sat quietly down on an angle of the wall, his arms crossed, and regarded the proud general with a wild, disdainful look.
The peasant-girl, carrying bandages in her hand, advanced leisurely along a footpath, beyond the wall. Her song seemed to surprise the marsk. The old prisoner on the wall also listened attentively. The girl first sang aloud, at some distance:--
"They were full seven score men and seven
Upon the muir who met: