Hierüber vant Tristan einen sin,
Si giengen an ir bette wider,
Und leiten sich dâ wider nider,
Von einander wol pin dan,
Reht als man and man,
Niht als man and wîp;
Dâ lac lîp and lîp,
In fremder gelegenheit,
Ouch hât Tristan geleit
Sîn swert bar enzwischen si.
And the old French Tristan in the same way:
Et qant il vit la nue espee
Qui entre eus deus les deseurout.
So the old English Tristrem, line 2,002-3:
His sword he drough titly
And laid it hem bitvene.
And the old German ballad in Des Knaben Wunderhorn, 2, 276:
Der Herzog zog aus sein goldiges schwert,
Er leit es zwischen beide hert
Das schwert soll weder hauen noch schneiden,
Das Annelein soll ein megedli bleiben.
So Fonzo and Fenizia in the Pentamerone, I, 9:
Ma segnenno havere fatto vuto a Diana, de non toccare la mogliere la notte, mese la spata arranata comme staccione “miezo ad isso ed a Fenizia.
And in Grimm’s story of “The Two Brothers” where the second brother lays “a double-edged sword” at night between himself and his brother’s wife, who has mistaken him for his twin brother. In fact the custom as William Wackernagel has shewn in Haupt’s Zeitschrift für Deutsches Alterthum was one recognized by the law; and so late as 1477, when Lewis, County Palatine of Veldenz represented Maximilian of Austria as his proxy at the betrothal of Mary of Burgundy, he got into the bed of state, booted and spurred, and laid a naked sword between him and the bride. Comp. Birkens Ehrenspiegel, p. 885. See also as a proof that the custom was known in England as late as the seventeenth century, The Jovial Crew, a comedy first acted in 1641, and quoted by Sir W. Scott in his Tristrem, p. 345, where it is said (Act V, sc. 2): “He told him that he would be his proxy, and marry her for him, and lie with her the first night with a naked cudgel betwixt them.” And see for the whole subject, J. Grimm’s Deutsche Rechts-Alterthümer, Göttingen, 1828, p. 168-70.
[60] M. Moe, Introd. Norsk. Event (Christiania, 1851, 2d Ed.), to which the writer is largely indebted.
[61] Popular Rhymes of Scotland (Ed. 1847).