Two Scandinavian ballads, as Dr Prior has remarked, seem to have been at least suggested by the romances of Horn.
(1.) 'Unge Hr. Tor og Jomfru Tore,' Grundtvig, No 72, II, 263, translated by Prior, III, 151. Of this there are two traditional versions: A from a manuscript of the sixteenth century, B from one of the seventeenth. They agree in story. In A, Tor asks Sølffuermord how long she will wait for him. Nine years, she answers, if she can do so without angering her friends. He will be satisfied with eight. Eight have passed: a family council is held, and it is decided that she shall not have Young Tor, but a certain rich count. Her father "gives her away" that same day. The lady goes up to a balcony and looks seaward. Everybody seems to be coming home but her lover. She begs her brother to ride down to the shore for her. Tor is just coming in, hails the horseman, and eagerly asks how are the maids in the isle. The brother tells him that his maid has waited eight years, and is even now drinking her bridal, but with tears. Tor takes his harp and chess-board, and plays outside the bridal hall till the bride hears and knows him. He then enters the hall, and asks if there is anybody that can win a game of chess. The father replies, Nobody but Sølffuermord, and she sits a bride at the board. The mother indulgently suggests that the midsummer day is long, and the bride might well try a game. The bride seeks an express sanction of her father, who lessons her the livelong day, being suspicious of Tor, but towards evening consents to her playing a little while,—not long. Tor wins the first game, and must needs unpack his heart in a gibing parable, ending
'Full hard is gold to win,
And so is a trothless quean.'
She wins the next game, takes up the parable, and says
'Many were glad their faith to hold,
Were their lot to be controlled.'
They are soon at one, and resolve to fly. They slip away, go aboard Tor's ship, and put off. The bride's parents get information, and the mother, who is a professor of the black art, raises a storm which she means shall sink them both. No one can steer the ship but the bride. She stands at the helm, with her gold crown on, while her lover is lying seasick on the deck, and she brings the craft safe into Norway, where a second wedding is celebrated.
(2.) The other ballad is 'Herr Lovmand og Herr Thor,' Syv, iv, No 68, Danske Viser, IV, 180, No 199, translated by Prior, II, 442. Lovmand, having betrothed Ingelil, asks how long she will be his maid. "Eight years, if I may," she says. This term has elapsed; her brothers consult, and give her to rich Herr Thor. They drink the bridal for five days; for nine days; she will not go to bed. On the evening of the tenth, they begin to use force. She begs that she may first go to the look-out up-stairs. From there she sees ships, great and small, and the sails which her own hands have made for her lover. Her brother goes down to the sea, as in the other ballad, and has a similar interview. Lovmand has the excuse of having been sick seven years. He borrows the brother's horse, flies faster than a bird, and the torch is burning at the door of the bride's house when he arrives. Thor is reasonable enough to give up the bride, and to accept Lovmand's sister.
The ballad is extremely common in Sweden, and at least six versions have been published. A, 'Herr Lagman och Herr Thor,' from a manuscript of the end of the sixteenth century, Arwidsson, I, 165, No 24; B, from a manuscript, ib., p. 168; C, from oral tradition, p. 171; D, 'Lageman och hans Brud,' Eva Wigström, Folkdiktning samlad och upptecknad i Skåne, p. 29, No 12; E, 'Stolt Ingrid,' Folkvisor fråu Skåne, upptecknade af E. Wigström, in Hazelius, Ur de nordiska Folkens Lif, p. 121, No 3; F, 'Deielill och Lageman,' Fagerlund, Anteckningar om Korpo och Houtskärs Socknar, p. 192, No 3. In A, D the bride goes off in her lover's ship; in C he carries her off on his horse, when the dancing is at its best, and subsequently, upon the king's requisition, settles matters with his rival by killing him in single fight. The stolid bridegroom, in the others, consents to a peaceable arrangement.
Certain points in the story of Horn—the long absence, the sudden return, the appearance under disguise at the wedding feast, and the dropping of the ring into a cup of wine obtained from the bride—repeat themselves in a great number of romantic tales. More commonly it is a husband who leaves his wife for seven years, is miraculously informed on the last day that she is to be remarried on the morrow, and is restored to his home in the nick of time, also by superhuman means. Horn is warned to go back, in the ballads and in Horn Child, by the discoloration of his ring, but gets home as he can; this part of the story is slurred over in a way that indicates a purpose to avoid a supernatural expedient.
Very prominent among the stories referred to is that of Henry of Brunswick [Henry the Lion, Reinfrid of Brunswick], and this may well be put first, because it is preserved in Scandinavian popular ballads.[165]