First were they the three wood-robbers' wives,
And after that they lost their young lives.
The robbers strip them; then go and ask to be taken in by Herr Töres. He serves them with mead and wine, but presently begins to wish his daughters were at home. His wife sees him to bed; then returns to her guests, who offer her a silken sark to pass the night with them. "Give me a sight of the silken sark," she cries, with prophetic soul: "God have mercy on my daughters!" She rouses her husband, and tells him that the robbers have slain his bairns. He puts on his armor and kills two of them: the third begs to be spared till he can say who were his kin; his father's name is Töres! Father and mother resolve to build a church for penance, and it shall be called Kerna. B, C, D. The girls meet three "vallare," strolling men, and none of them good (C). The robbers cut off the girls' heads on the trunk of a birch (cf. English C 5: "It's lean your head upon my staff," and with his pen-knife he has cutted it aff): three springs burst forth immediately. They go to the house, and ask the mother if she will buy silken sarks that nine maids have stitched (B). She says:
'Open your sacks, and let me see:
Mayhap I shall know them all three.'
The father, in B, when he discovers that he has slain his own sons, goes to the smith, and has an iron band fastened round his middle. The parents vow to build a church as an expiation, and it shall be called Kerna (B, C).
Färöe. 'Torkilds Riim, eller St. Catharinæ Vise, 'Lyngbye, Færøiske Qvæder, p. 534/p. 535. In this form of the story, as in the Icelandic versions which follow, the robbers are not the brothers of the maids. Torkild's two daughters sleep till the sun shines on their beds. Their father wakens them, and tells Katrine she is waited for at church. Katrine dresses herself splendidly, but does not disdain to saddle her own horse.
And since no knave was ready to help,
Katrine bridled the horse herself.
And since no knave was standing about,
Herself put the bit in her horse's mouth.
First she came upon three strollers (vadlarar[156]), then two, then one, and the last asked her whether she would pass the night with him (vera qvöldar vujv) or die. He cut off her head, and wherever her blood ran a light kindled; where her head fell a spring welled forth: where her body lay a church was [afterwards] built. The rover came to Torkild's house, and the father asked if he had seen Katrine. He said she had been at Mary kirk the day before, and asked for a lodging, feigning to be sick. This was readily granted. He went to bed, and Aasa, the other sister, waited upon him. He offered her a silken sark to sleep with him. Aasa asked to see the sark first, and found on it her sister's mark. The fellow went on to offer her a blue cloak and gold crown successively, and on both of these she saw her sister's mark. Aasa bade him good-night, went to her father, and told him that the man they had housed had killed his daughter. Torkild ordered his swains to light a pile in the wood: early the next morning they burned the murderer on it.
Icelandic. Five Icelandic versions, and the first stanza of two more, are given in Íslenzk Fornkvæði, I, 108 ff, No 15, 'Vallara kvæði.'
The story is nearly the same as in the Färöe ballad. Two of Thorkell's daughters sleep till after the sun is up (B, C). They wash and dress; they set out for church (C). On the heath they encounter a strolling man, A; a tall, large man, C, E; a horseman or knight, D. He greets them: "Why will ye not speak? Are ye come of elves, or of kings themselves?" A [Are ye come of earls, or of beggar-churls? B]. They answer, We are not come of elves, nor of kings themselves; we are Thorkell's daughters, and serve Mary kirk. He asks, Will ye choose to lose your life, or shall I rather take you to wife? The choice, they say, is hard: they would rather die. He kills them and buries them. At night he goes to Thorkell's house, where Asa is alone. He knocks to be let in; Asa refuses; he draws the latch with his deft fingers (A, C, D). He offers Asa a silken sark to sleep with him [and a blue cloak to say nothing, A]. She asked to see the sark, and knew her sisters' work, begged him to wait a moment, went to her father, and told him that the murderer of his daughters was there. Thorkell dashed his harp to the floor [and kicked over the table, D, E]. The murderer in the morning was hanged like a dog, A, B. [Thorkell tore at his hair and cut him down with an elder-stock, C; they fought three days, and on the fourth the villain was hanged in a strap, E, the knight was hanging like a dog, D]. A miraculous light burned over the place where the maids had been buried, A 16, C 27, D 24, E 12. When their bodies were taken into the church, the bells rang of themselves, D.