The Grateful Dead: The History of a Folk Story

by Gordon Hall Gerould

Swedish[17] is a somewhat abbreviated form of the normal type. Pelle Båtsman, while on a journey, pays the debts of a dead man, and so brings repose to him; for he has been hunted from his grave and soundly beaten every night by his creditors, who are likewise dead. Pelle then falls in with robbers, with whom he finds the daughter of the King of Armenia. He escapes with her, and goes on board a ship to seek her father, but he is thrown overboard by the envious captain. He is saved by the thankful dead and brought to Armenia, where he marries the princess. Here the burial is peculiar in that the dead man is harassed by creditors who are already dead. This is a marvel, which need excite no surprise in view of the modifications of the trait found elsewhere. The ransom in this case does not imply a money payment, since the hero escapes from robbers with the maiden. The way in which the hero is left behind by the master of the vessel on which the lovers sail is a trait similar to the one in Catalan and Spanish. The agreement between the hero and the ghost, the sign employed by the hero, and the division of gains are all lacking; but no new feature replaces them.

Norwegian I.[18] is not very different from the preceding tale. A man in the service of a merchant pays all he has, while on one voyage, to bury the body of a dead man. On his next voyage he ransoms a princess, and sets out with her for England. On the way she is carried off by her brother and a former suitor. The hero overtakes them and is given a ring by the lady, but is cast into the sea by the suitor. For seven years he lives on a desert isle, till an old man appears, tells him that it is the princess’s bridal day, carries him to England, and gives him a flask. This the hero sends to his lady, is thus recognized, and is married. The agreement with the ghost and the division of the woman are entirely lacking, though the burial, the ransom, the treachery of the suitor, and the aid of the ghost appear in normal fashion. The sign enters only as a means of communication between the lovers. The tale thus has no very unusual traits.

Icelandic I.[19] is a fuller, and, for our purpose, more interesting variant than the last. Thorsteinn, a king’s son, who has wasted his substance, sells his kingdom and sets forth into the world. He pays two hundred rix-dollars to free from debt a dead man, whose grave is beaten every day by a creditor to destroy his rest. The prince goes on, and in the castle of a giant finds a princess hanging by the hair. He frees her, and is taking her home when he meets Raudr, a knight to whom her hand has been promised if he can find her. Raudr puts the prince to sea alone in a boat and carries the lady home. Thorsteinn, however, is brought thither also by the ghost and is recognized by the princess, when she is about to be married to the traitor. So Raudr is punished, and Thorsteinn obtains the princess.

Here, again, the agreement, the sign, and the division do not appear, though the version is otherwise normal. To be sure, the ransom of the lady is replaced by a rescue, as in Swedish, and the beating of the grave preserves a bit of northern superstition, which is interesting even though not primitive as far as our tale is concerned.[20]

Icelandic II. is similar to the variant just cited in several particulars, though it has important differences. Vilhjálmur, a merchant’s son, loses his property and becomes the servant of twelve robbers. In their den he finds a princess named Ása hanging by the hair. He escapes with her by sea, taking along the thieves’ treasure. This he pays to have the body of a debtor buried. To the haven where this happens comes Rauður in search of the princess, takes the couple on his ship, but puts the hero to sea in a rudderless boat. A man appears to Vilhjálmur in a dream, saying that he is the ghost of the man whom he has buried, and that he will bring him to land and show him treasure. So the hero is brought to the land of the princess and tells his story at the wedding of the traitor with the princess. Thus the bride is won for him.

The hero, it will be observed, is a merchant instead of a prince, as in Icelandic I., and the burial of the dead is customary in form though exceptionally placed in the narrative. Otherwise the two variants correspond rather closely, even in such a detail as the name of the traitor. There is the same omission of elements peculiar to The Grateful Dead, the same preponderance of the secondary motive, found in all the northern versions of this particular group. The two Icelandic variants seem to be perfectly distinct, though they are nearly related.

The two German folk-tales which fall into this group are not very different from one another. In Simrock IV. a merchant’s son pays the debts of a man who is being devoured by dogs, but does not succeed in saving his life. He goes on, finds two maidens exposed on a rock, and takes them home. In spite of his father’s objections, he marries one of them. He goes to sea again, wearing a ring that his wife has given him, and carrying a flag marked with her name. Coming to the royal court of her father, he is sent back for the princess with a minister. On his voyage to court again he is put overboard by the minister, who hopes thus to win the princess. However, he is cast up on an island, where the ghost of the dead man appears to him in sleep and transports him miraculously to court. There he is recognized by his ring and reunited to his wife.

Details such as those concerning the burial, the rescue of the lady, and the help given miraculously by the ghost mark the independence of the variant, though they do not alter the normal course of the narrative. As so often in this group, the agreement with the ghost and the division are entirely lacking.

In Simrock VI. the variations from the normal are even slighter. Heinrich of Hamburg buys a beautiful maiden in a foreign land. On the sea-coast, when he is returning home with her, he pays the debts of a corpse and has it buried. He wishes to marry the girl, but she asks that he delay the wedding for a year and make a journey first. So she gives him two coffers, with which he crosses the sea. By the help of a shipman he finds his betrothed’s royal father, but on his way back to fetch her home is cast overboard by the mariner, who is the original kidnapper of the maiden. This man gets her and carries her to the court with the hope of marrying her. The hero is saved from the sea, however, by the ghost of the dead man, who brings him to the garden of the princess’s palace, where he is found by his bride.

The order of the burial and the ransoming[21] is here reversed, but the facts are given in the ordinary form. Otherwise the variant does not differ essentially from the preceding.