As they crossed o'er the churchyard-wall,
On her husband's grave her eye did fall.
"Who is now dead of our family,
That thus fresh dug our ground I see?"
"Alas! my child, the truth can I
Not hide: thy husband there doth lie."
On her two knees herself she cast
And rose no more, she breathed her last.
It was a marvel to see, men say,
The night that followed the day,
The lady in earth by her lord lay,
To see two oak-trees themselves rear
From the new-made grave into the air;
And on their branches two doves white,
Who there were hopping gay and light;
Which sang when rose the morning-ray
And then toward heaven sped away.
This ballad is very remarkable. Its similarity to that of Sir Olof, so celebrated in Scandinavia, and of which we have already given two variations out of fifteen, must strike every one; in its concluding stanzas also it resembles other Scandinavian and English ballads. On the other hand, the White Doe and the Korrigan at the fount remind us of the Lais of Marie de France. Our opinion on the whole is, that the ballad belongs to Scandinavia, whence it was brought at an early period—by the Normans, we might say only for its Christian air in both countries—and naturalised in the usual manner. It is rather strange that there is neither an English nor a Scottish version of it.