There would seem to be some connexion between this ballad and the French romance of “Ogier the Dane,” and Erman tells us that it was sung in Russian in Siberia as late as 1828.
“The Lady of the Tree” tells how a princess was stolen by the fairies, and how a knight to whom she appealed for rescue turned a deaf ear to her request and was afterward scorned by her when she returned to her rightful station. “The False Queen” is a mere fragment, but “The Avenging Childe” is both complete and vivid. Mr Fitzmaurice Kelly declares that Gibson’s version of this ballad is superior to that of Lockhart. Let us compare a verse of both.
Avoid that knife in battle strife, that weapon short and thin;
The dragon’s gore hath bath’d it o’er, seven times ’twas steeped therein;
Seven times the smith hath proved its pith, it cuts a coulter through—
In France the blade was fashioned, from Spain the shaft it drew.
Gibson renders this:
’Tis a right good spear with a point so sharp, the toughest plough-share might pierce.
For seven times o’er it was tempered fine in the blood of a dragon fierce,
And seven times o’er it was whetted keen, till it shone with a deadly glance,