[K]. Notes and Queries, 4th S., IV, 517.
A a was obtained directly from Mrs Brown of Falkland, in 1800, by Alexander Fraser Tytler. Jamieson says that he gives b verbatim from the recitation of Mrs Arrott; but it would seem that this must have been a slip of memory, for the two agree except in half a dozen words. B, C, I, J are now for the first time printed. G only was taken down earlier than the present century.
Aytoun remarks (1858): "This is, perhaps, the most popular of all the Scottish ballads, being commonly recited and sung even at the present day." The copy which he gives, I, 232, was "taken down from recitation," but is nevertheless a compound of G and A b, with a few unimportant variations, proceeding, no doubt, from imperfect recollection.[143] The copy in Dixon's Ancient Poems, Ballads, and Songs, p. 56, repeated in Bell's volume of the same title, p. 50, is Gilbert's F. Dixon informs us that the ballad was (in 1846) still popular amongst the peasantry in the west of England. Cunningham gives us a piece called 'The Three Ladies of Leithan Ha,' Songs of Scotland, II, 87, which he would fain have us believe that he did not know he had written himself. "The common copies of this tragic lyric," he truly says, "differ very much from this; not so much in the story itself as in the way it is told."
All versions but K, which has pretty nearly lost all point, agree after the opening stanzas. A-E have three ladies and only one knight; F has three knights and one lady; G, I, J, K have three ladies and three knights [lords in G, "bonny boys" in I, the first line being caught from 'Sir Hugh.'] Three knights are to no purpose; only one knight has anything to do. The reason for three ladies is, of course, that the youngest may be preferred to the others,—an intention somewhat obscured in B. The ladies are in colors in B, C, I, J, and this seems to be the better interpretation in the case of G, though a strict construction of the language would rather point to the other. The colors are transferred to the knights in F because there is only one lady. In K this is a part of the general depravation of the ballad.
'Rizzardo bello,' Wolf, Volkslieder aus Venetien, No 83, seems to be the same story, with a change of relations such as we often find in ballad poetry. Rizzardo is conducting his bride home, and on the way embraces and kisses her. Her brother witnesses "questo onore," and thrusts his sword into the happy bridegroom's heart. Rizzardo tells his bride to come on slowly; he will go before to make preparation. He begs his mother to open the doors, for his bride is without, and he is wounded to death. They try to make the bride eat. She says she can neither eat nor drink: she must put her husband to bed. He gives her a ring, saying, Your brother has been the death of me; then another ring, in sign that she is to be wife of two brothers. She answers him as Guldborg answers Ribold, that she would die rather: "Rather die between two knives than be wife of two brothers." This ballad was obtained from a peasant woman of Castagnero. Another version, which unfortunately is not printed, was sung by a woman at Ostiglia on the Po.
Dr Prior remarks that the offence given by not asking a brother's assent to his sister's marriage was in ballad-times regarded as unpardonable. Other cases which show the importance of this preliminary, and the sometimes fatal consequences of omitting it, are: 'Hr. Peder og Mettelille,' Grundtvig, No 78, II, 325, sts 4, 6; 'Jomfruen i Skoven,' Danske Viser, III, 99, st. 15; 'Jomfru Ellensborg og Hr. Olof,' ib., III, 316, st. 16; 'Iver Lang og hans Søster,' ib., IV, 87, st. 116; 'Herr Helmer Blaa,' ib., IV, 251, st. 8; 'Jomfru Giselmaar,' ib., IV, 309, st. 13. See Prior's Ancient Danish Ballads, III, 112, 232 f, 416.
There is a very common German ballad, 'Graf Friedrich,' in which a bride receives a mortal wound during the bringing-home, but accidentally, and from the bridegroom's hand. The marriage train is going up a hill; the way is narrow; they are crowded; Graf Friedrich's sword shoots from its sheath and wounds the bride. The bridegroom is exceedingly distressed; he tries to stop the bleeding with his shirt; she begs that they may ride slowly. When they reach the house there is a splendid feast, and everything is set before the bride; but she can neither eat nor drink, and only wishes to lie down. She dies in the night. Her father comes in the morning, and, learning what has happened, runs Graf Friedrich through, then drags his body at a horse's heels, and buries it in a bog. Three lilies sprang from the spot, with an inscription announcing that Graf Friedrich was in heaven, and a voice came from the sky commanding that the body should be disinterred. The bridegroom was then buried with his bride, and this act of reparation was attended with other miraculous manifestations. As the ballads stand now, the kinship of 'Graf Friedrich' with 'The Cruel Brother' is not close and cannot be insisted on; still an early connection is not improbable.
The versions of 'Graf Friedrich' are somewhat numerous, and there is a general agreement as to all essentials. They are: A, a Nuremberg broadside "of about 1535," which has not been made accessible by a reprint. B, a Swiss broadside of 1647, without place, "printed in Seckendorf's Musenalmanach für 1808, p. 19;" Uhland, No 122, p. 277; Mittler, No 108; Wunderhorn, II, 293 (1857); Erk's Liederhort, No 15a, p. 42; Böhme, No 79, p. 166: also, in Wunderhorn, 1808, II, 289, with omission of five stanzas and with many changes; Simrock, No 11, p. 28, omitting four stanzas and with changes; as written down by Goethe for Herder, Düntzer u. Herder, Briefe Goethes, u.s.w., Aus Herder's Nachlass, I, 167, with the omission of eight stanzas and with some variations. C, Wunderhorn (1857), II, 299, from the Schwarzwald, == Erlach, IV, 291, Mittler, No 113. D, Taschenbuch für Dichter, u.s.w., Theil VIII, 122, from Upper Lusatia, == Erlach, III, 448, Talvj, Charakteristik, p. 421. E, from the Kuhländchen, Meinert, p. 23, == Mittler, No 109. F, Hoffmann u. Richter, Schlesische V. L., No 19, p. 35, == Mittler, No 112, Erk's Liederhort, No 15, p. 40. G, Zingerle, in Wolf's Zeitschrift für deutsche Mythologie, I, 341, from Meran. H, from Uckermark, Brandenburg, Mittler, No 114. I, Hesse, from oral tradition, Mittler, No 111. J, Erk u. Irmer, II, 54, No 54, from the neighborhood of Halle, == Mittler, No 110. K, from Estedt, district of Magdeburg, Parisius, p. 31, No 9.
A Danish ballad, 'Den saarede Jomfru,' Grundtvig, No 244, IV, 474, has this slight resemblance with 'Graf Friedrich:' While a knight is dancing with a princess, his sword glides from the scabbard and cuts her hand. To save her partner from blame, she represents to her father that she had cut herself with her brother's sword. This considerateness so touches the knight (who is, of course, her equal in rank) that he offers her his hand. The Danish story is found also in Norwegian and in Färöe ballads.