“Pity and charity for poor English ladies, who have spent and used up all their money on the road. From the land of low Germany, where we have had great difficulties, all we poor sisters are on our way to Rome, but because it has rained so hard, we have not been able to continue our road. Therefore, good sirs, give alms to us poor English ladies. In the district of Milan ill-used were we, for thieves and strangers stole all our goods; so buffetted were we, never again will we go on such a journey. Therefore, good sirs, give alms to us poor English ladies. Poor Anastasia was so knocked about, that in shame she hides her ill and must needs continue her road limping. Therefore, good sirs, give alms to us poor English ladies. Whoever is a devotee of St Pancras, who is so powerful in heaven, whoever wishes to have his grace, let him give us money, so that we poor miserable creatures may get to our journey’s end; therefore, good sirs, give alms to us poor English ladies.”
Sometimes the nun is found playing a part in the romantic ballad-literature of Europe. A Rhineland legend of the dance of death, interesting because it embodies the names and dates of the actors, has for its setting a convent; it is thus summarised by Countess Martinengo-Cesaresco[1773]:
In the fourteenth century Freiherr von Metternich placed his daughter Ida in a convent on the island of Oberwörth, in order to separate her from her lover, one Gerbert, to whom she was secretly betrothed. A year later the maiden lay sick in the nunnery, attended by an aged lay sister. “Alas!” she said “I die unwed though a betrothed wife.” “Heaven forfend!” cried her companion, “then you would be doomed to dance the death-dance.” The old sister went on to explain that betrothed maidens who die without having either married or taken religious vows, are condemned to dance on a grassless spot in the middle of the island, there being but one chance of escape, the coming of a lover, no matter whether the original betrothed or another, with whom the whole party dances round and round till he dies; then the youngest of the ghosts makes him her own and may henceforth rest in her grave. The old nun’s gossip does not delay the hapless Ida’s departure, and Gerbert, who hears of her illness on the shores of the Boden See, arrives at Coblenz only to have tidings of her death. He rows over to Oberwörth; it is midnight in midwinter. Under the moonlight dance the unwed brides, veiled and in flowing robes; Gerbert thinks he sees Ida among them. He joins the dance; fast and furious it becomes, to the sound of a wild unearthly music. At last the clock strikes and the ghosts vanish—only one, as it goes, seems to stoop and kiss the youth, who sinks to the ground. There the gardener finds him on the morrow, and in spite of all the care bestowed upon him by the sisterhood, he dies before sundown.
Another German ballad, taken down from oral recitation, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, opens with a good swing:
Stund ich auf hohen bergen
Und sah ich über den Rhein
Ein Schifflein sah ich fahren,
Drei Ritter waren drein.
“I stood upon a high mountain and looked out over the Rhine, and I saw three knights come sailing in a little boat. The youngest was a lord’s son, and fain would have wed me, young as he was. He drew a little golden ring from off his finger, “Take this, my fair, my lovely one, but do not wear it till I am dead.” “What shall I do with the little ring, if I may not wear it?” “O say you found it out in the green grass.” “O that would be a lie and evil. Far sooner would I say that the young lord was my husband.” “O maiden, were you but wealthy, came you but of noble kin, were we but equals, gladly would I wed you.” “Though I may not be rich yet am I not without honour, and my honour I will keep, until one who is my equal comes for me.” “But if your equal never comes, what then?” “Then I will go into a convent and become a nun.” There had not gone by a quarter of a year when the lord had an evil dream; it seemed to him that the love of his heart was gone into a convent. “Rise up, rise up, my trusty man, saddle horses for thee and me. We will ride over mountains and through valleys—the maid is worth all the world.” And when they came to the convent, they knocked at the door of the tall house, “Come forth, my fair, my lovely one, come forth for but a minute.” “Wherefore should I come forth? Short hair have I, my locks they have cut off—for a long year has passed.” Despair filled the lord’s heart; he sank upon a stone and wept glittering tears and could never be glad again. With her snow-white little hands she dug the lord a grave and the tears fell for him out of her brown eyes. And to all young men this happens who seek after great wealth. They set their love upon beautiful women; but beauty and riches go not always hand in hand”[1774].
It is a strange thing that in all the ballad and folk-song literature of England and Scotland there should be one and only one reference to a nun. But that reference is a profoundly interesting one, for it is to be found in the fine ballad of the Death of Robin Hood, which tells how the great outlaw came to his end through the treachery of the Prioress of Kirklees:
When Robin Hood and Little John
Down a-down, a-down, a-down,
Went o’er yon bank of broom
Said Robin Hood to Little John,
“We have shot for many a pound:
Hey down, a-down, a-down.
“But I am not able to shoot one shot more,
My broad arrows will not flee;
But I have a cousin lives down below,
Please God, she will bleed me.”
“I will never eat nor drink,” he said,
“Nor meat will do me good,
Till I have been to merry Kirkleys
My veins for to let blood.
“The dame prior is my aunt’s daughter,
And nigh unto my kin;
I know she wo’ld me no harm this day
For all the world to win.”
“That I rede not,” said Little John,
“Master, by th’ assent of me,
Without half a hundred of your best bowmen
You take to go with yee.”
“An thou be afear’d, thou Little John,
At home I rede thee be.”
“An you be wrath, my deare mastèr
You shall never hear more of me.”
Now Robin is gone to merry Kirkleys
And knocked upon the pin;
Up then rose Dame Prioress
And let good Robin in.
Then Robin gave to Dame Prioress
Twenty pounds in gold,
And bade her spend while that did last,
She sho’ld have more when she wo’ld.
“Will you please to sit down, cousin Robin;
And drink some beer with me?”—
“No, I will neither eat nor drink
Till I am blooded by thee.”
Down then came Dame Priorèss
Down she came in that ilk,
With a pair of blood-irons in her hand,
Were wrappèd all in silk.
“Set a chafing dish to the fire,” she said,
“And strip thou up thy sleeve.”
—I hold him but an unwise man
That will no warning ’leeve.
She laid the blood-irons to Robin’s vein,
Alack the more pitye!
And pierc’d the vein, and let out the blood
That full red was to see.
And first it bled the thick, thick blood,
And afterwards the thin,
And well then wist good Robin Hood
Treason there was within.
And there she blooded bold Robin Hood
While one drop of blood wou’d run;
There did he bleed the livelong day,
Until the next of morn.
Then Robin, locked in the room and too weak to escape by the casement, blew three weak blasts upon his horn, and Little John came hurrying to Kirklees and burst open two or three locks and so found his dying master. “A boon, a boon!” cried Little John:
“What is that boon,” said Robin Hood
“Little John, thou begs of me?”—
“It is to burn fair Kirkleys-hall
And all their nunnerye.”
“Now nay, now nay,” quoth Robin Hood,
“That boon I’ll not grant thee;
I never hurt woman in all my life,
Nor men in their company.”
“I never hurt maid in all my time,
Nor at mine end shall it be;
But give me my bent bow in my hand,
And a broad arrow I’ll let flee;
And where this arrow is taken up
There shall my grave digg’d be”[1775].