'Forty weeks went Mary with Christ,
And so each Danish woman must.
'Forty weeks I went with mine,
But eight years shalt thou go with thine.'
The forty weeks had passed, and Ellen began to long for relief. Sir Peter besought aid of his sister Ingerlin. If I help your young bride, she said, I must be traitor to my mother. Sir Peter insisted, and Ingerlin moulded a fine child of wax,[103] wrapped it in linen, and exhibited it to her mother, who, supposing that her arts had been baffled, burst out into exclamations of astonishment. She had thought she could twist a rope out of flying sand, lay sun and moon flat on the earth with a single word, turn the whole world round about! She had thought all the house was spell-bound, except the spot where the young wife's chest stood, the chest of red rowan, which nothing can bewitch! The chest was instantly taken away, and Ellen's bed moved to the place it had occupied; and no sooner was this done than Ellen gave birth to two children.
In the ballads of the other class, the young wife, grown desperate after eight years of suffering, asks to be taken back to her maiden home. Her husband's mother raises objections: the horses are in the meadow, the coachman is in bed. Then, she says, I will go on my bare feet. The moment her husband learns her wish, the carriage is at the door, but by the arts of the mother it goes to pieces on the way, and the journey has to be finished on horseback. The joy of her parents at seeing their daughter approaching was quenched on a nearer view: she looked more dead than quick. She called her family about her and distributed her effects. A great wail went up in the house when two sons were cut from the mother's side. (C, J, K, L, W: Grundtvig, 84 C; Kristensen, II, No 35 A, B, C; I, No 74 C.)
The first son stood up and brushed his hair:
'Most surely am I in my ninth year.'
The second stood up both fair and red:
'Most sure we'll avenge our dear mother dead.'[104]
Several of the most important ballads of the first class have taken up a part of the story of those of the second class, to the detriment of consistency. F, G, H, O, P (Grundtvig, 84 F, G, H, Kristensen, II, No 35 F, G), make the wife quit her husband's house for her father's, not only without reason, but against reason. If the woman is to die, it is natural enough that she should wish to die with the friends of her early days, and away from her uncongenial mother-in-law; but there is no kind of occasion for transferring the scene of the trick with the wax children to her father's house; and, on the other hand, it is altogether strange that her husband's mother and the rowan-tree chest (which sometimes appears to be the property of the mother, sometimes that of the wife) should go with her.
Y, 'Hustru og Slegfred,' Grundtvig, 85, agrees with the second class up to the point when the wife is put to bed at her mother's house, but with the important variation that the spell is the work of a former mistress of the husband; instead of his mother, as in most of the ballads, or of the wife's foster-mother, as in C, D, J, K, M (Grundtvig, 84 C, D, Kristensen, II, No 35 A, B, D), or of the wife's step-mother as in A only. The conclusion of 'Hustru og Slegfred' is rather flat. The wife, as she lies in bed, bids all her household hold up their hands and pray for her relief, which occurs on the same day. The news is sent to her husband, who rejoins his wife, is shown his children, praises God, and burns his mistress. Burning is also the fate of the mother-in-law in B, I, O, P, whereas in F she dies of chagrin, and in G bursts into a hundred flinders (flentsteene).
This ballad, in the mixed form of O, P (Kristensen, II, 35 F, G), has been resolved into a tale in Denmark, a few lines of verse being retained. Recourse is had by the spell-bound wife to a cunning woman in the village, who informs her that in her house there is a place in which a rowan-tree chest has stood, and that she can get relief there. The cunning woman subsequently pointing out the exact spot, two boys are born, who are seven years old, and can both walk and talk. Word is sent the witch that her son's wife has been delivered of two sons, and that she herself shall be burned the day following. The witch says, "I have been able to twine a string out of running water. If I have not succeeded in bewitching the woman, she must have found the place where the damned rowan chest stood." (Grundtvig, III, 858, No 84 b.)
Three Swedish versions of the ballad have been printed. A, B, from tradition of this century, are given by Arwidsson, II, 252 ff, 'Liten Kerstins Förtrollning,' No 134. These resemble the Danish ballads of the second class closely. Liten Kerstin goes to her mother's house, gives birth to two children, and dies. In A the children are a son and daughter. The son stands up, combs his hair, and says, "I am forty weeks on in my ninth year." He can run errands in the village, and the daughter sew red silk. In B both children are boys. One combs his hair, and says, "Our grandmother shall be put on two wheels." The other draws his sword, and says, "Our mother is dead, our grandmother to blame. I hope our mother is with God. Our grandmother shall be laid on seven wheels." The other copy, C, mentioned by Grundtvig as being in Cavallius and Stephens' manuscript collection, has been printed in the Svenska Fornminnesföreningens Tidskrift, vol. ii, p. 72 ff, 1873-74. It dates from the close of the sixteenth century, and resembles the mixed ballads of the Danish first class, combining the flitting to the father's house with the artifice of the wax children. The conclusion of this ballad has suffered greatly. After the two sons are born, we are told that Kirstin, before unmentioned, goes to the chest and makes a wax child. If the chest were moved, Elin would be free of her child. And then the boy stands up and brushes his hair, and says he has come to his eighth year.