Issued in bright green paper wrappers, with untrimmed edges, and with the title-page reproduced upon the front. The leaves measure 8¾ × 6⅞ inches.
Thirty Copies only were printed.
Contents.
| page | |
| Songs relating to Queen Dagmar: | |
| I. King Valdemar’s Wooing. [Valdemar King and Sir Strange bold] | 5 |
| II. Queen Dagmar’s Arrival in Denmark. [It was Bohemia’s Queen began] | 14 |
| III. The Mermaid’s Prophecy. [The King he has caught the fair mermaid, and deep] | 19 |
| Rosmer. [Buckshank bold and Elfinstone] This ballad should be read in conjunction with Rosmer Mereman, printed in Young Swaigder or The Force of Runes and Other Ballads, 1913, pp. 16–22. | 25 |
Of The Mermaid’s Prophecy there are two Manuscripts extant. In the earlier of these, written in 1829, the Poem is entitled The Mermaid’s Prophecy. In the later Manuscript, written apparently
about the year 1854, it is entitled The Mermaid only. From this later Manuscript the Poem was printed in the present volume.
Unlike the majority of Borrow’s Manuscripts, which usually exhibit extreme differences of text when two holographs exist of the same Poem, the texts of the two versions of The Mermaid’s Prophecy are practically identical, the opening stanza alone presenting any important variation. Here are the two versions of this stanza:
1829
The Dane King had the Mermaiden caught by his swains,
The mermaid dances the floor upon—
And her in the tower had loaded with chains,
Because his will she had not done.1854
The King he has caught the fair mermaid, and deep
(The mermaid dances the floor upon)
In the dungeon has placed her, to pine and to weep,
Because his will she had not done.
There is a copy of The Mermaid’s Prophecy and other Songs relating to Queen Dagmar in the Library of the British Museum. The Press mark is C. 44. d. 38.