13
'Ach du schöne junkfraw fein,
Du pfalzgrävin, du kaiserin!
Der Adelger hat sich vor ailf getödt,
Du wirst die zwölft, das sei dir gsait.
15
'So bitt mich nit, du junkfraw fein,
So bitt mich nit, du herzigs ein!'
The liebkosung of this murder-reeking Adelger, o'ersized with coagulate gore, is admirably horrible.
[43] Nimmersatt (All-begehrend) as interpreted by Meinert, not Adelger.
[44] Verses which recur, nearly, not only in Y 17-19, W 27, 28, but elsewhere, as in a copy of 'Graf Friedrich,' Erk's Liederhort, p. 41, No 15, st. 19.
[45] There is no sense in two doves. The single dove one may suppose to be the spirit of the last victim. We shall find the eleven appearing as doves in Q. There is no occasion to regard the dove here as a Waldminne (Vilmar, Handbüchlein für Freunde des deutschen Volkslieds, p. 57). Cf. the nightingale (and two nightingales) in the Danish 'Redselille og Medelvold:' see 'Leesome Brand,' further on in this volume.
[46] This ballad has become, in Tübingen, a children's game, called 'Bertha im Wald.' The three cries are preserved in verse, and very nearly as in J, M. The game concludes by the robber smothering Bertha. Meier, Deutsche Kinder-Reime, No 439.
[47] K, or the editor, seeks to avoid the difficulty by taking the last line from the knight, and reading, "Mit Blut war er umronnen," an emendation not according with the simplicity of ballads. Another Swabian copy, Meier, p. 301, note, strophe 6, has:
'Wir müssen zu selbigem Bronnen
Wo Wasser und Blut heraus ronnen.'
[48] The last verses are these, and not very much worse than the rest: