(1.) The latest of these, a Swedish ballad, from a collection made at the end of the last century, 'Hertig Henrik,' Arwidsson, No 168, II, 422, represents Duke Henry as telling his wife that he is minded to go off for seven years (he says not whither, but it is of course to the East); should he stay eight or nine, she may marry the man she fancies. He cuts a ring in two; gives her one half and keeps the other. He is made captive, and serves a heathen lord and lady seven years, drawing half the plough, "like another horse." His liberation is not accounted for, but he was probably set free by his mistress, as in the ballad which follows. He gets possession of an excellent sword, and uses it on an elephant who is fighting with a lion. The grateful lion transports the duke to his own country while he is asleep. A herdsman, of whom he asks food, recommends him to go to the Brunswick mansion, where there is a wedding, and Duke Henry's former spouse is the bride. When Henry comes to the house, his daughter is standing without; he asks food for a poor pilgrim. She replies that she has never heard of a pilgrim taking a lion about with him. But they give him drink, and the bride, pro more, drinks out of the same bowl, and finds the half ring in the bottom. The bride feels in her pocket and finds her half,[166] and the two, when thrown upon a table, run together and make one ring.
(2.) The Danish ballad[167] (Grundtvig, No 114, B, from a 17th century manuscript), relates that Duke Henry, in consequence of a dream, took leave of his wife, enjoining her to wait to the eighth year, and, if then he did not return, marry whom she liked. In the course of his fights with the heathen, Henry was made captive, and had to draw the harrow and plough, like a beast. One day (during his lord's absence, as we learn from A) the heathen lady whom he served set him free. He had many adventures, and in one of them killed a panther who was pressing a lion hard, for which service the lion followed him like a dog. The duke then happened upon a hermit, who told him that his wife was to be married the next day, but he was to go to sleep, and not be concerned. He laid his head on a stone in the heathen land, and woke in a trice to hear German speech from a herdsman's mouth. The herdsman confirmed what the hermit had said: the duchess was to be married on the morrow. The duke went to the kitchen as a pilgrim, and sent word to the lady that he wished to drink to her. The duchess, surprised at this freedom, summoned him into her presence. The verses are lost in which the cup should be given the pilgrim and returned to the lady. When she drank off the wine that was left, a half ring lay in the glass.
Danish A, though of the 16th century, does not mention the ring.
(3.) A Flemish broadside, which may originally have been of the 15th century, relates the adventures of the Duke of Brunswick in sixty-five stanzas of four long lines: reprinted in von der Hagen's Germania, VIII, 359, and Hoffmann's Niederländische Volkslieder, No 2, p. 6; Coussemaker, No 47, p. 152; abridged and made over, in Willems, O. v. L., p. 251, No 107. The duke, going to war, tells his wife to marry again if he stays away seven years. She gives him half of her ring. Seven years pass, and the duke, being then in desperate plight in a wilderness, is taken off by a ship; by providential direction, no doubt, though at first it does not so appear. For the fiend is aboard, who tells him that his wife is to be married to-morrow, and offers, for his soul, to carry him to his palace in his sleep before day. The duke, relying on heaven and his lion, professes to accept the terms: he is to be taken to his palace in his sleep. The lion rouses his master at the right time, and the fiend is baffled. The duke goes to the marriage feast, and sends a message to the bride that he desires a drink from her in memory of her lord. They take him for a beggar, but the lady orders him wine in a gold cup. The cup goes back to her with the duke's half ring in it. She cries, "It is my husband!" joins her half to the one in the cup, and the two adhere firmly.
(4.) A German poem of the 15th century, by Michel Wyssenhere, in ninety-eight stanzas of seven lines, first printed by Massmann, Denkmæler deutscher Sprache und Literatur, p. 122, and afterwards by Erlach, II, 290, and elsewhere. The Lord of Brunswick receives an impression in a dream that he ought to go to the Holy Sepulchre. He cuts a ring in two, and gives his wife one half for a souvenir, but fixes no time for his absence, and so naturally says nothing about her taking another husband. He has the adventures which are usual in other versions of the story, and at last finds himself among the Wild Hunt (das wöden her), and obliges one of the company, by conjurations, to tell him how it is with his wife and children. The spirit informs him that his wife is about to marry another man. He then constrains the spirit to transport him and his lion to his castle. This is done on the same terms as in the Flemish poem, and the lion wakes his master. His wife offers him drink; he lets his half ring drop in the glass, and, upon the glass being returned to the lady, she takes out the token, finds it like her half, and cries out that she has recovered her dear husband and lord.
(5.) Henry the Lion, a chap-book printed in the 16th century, in one hundred and four stanzas of eight short verses; reprinted in Büsching's Volkssagen, Märchen und Legenden, p. 213 ff, and (modernized) by Simrock in the first volume of Die deutschen Volksbücher. The hero goes out simply in quest of adventures, and, having lost his ship and all his companions, is floating on a raft with his lion, when the devil comes to him and tells him that his wife is to remarry. A compact is made, and the devil balked, as before. Though we were not so informed at the beginning, it now turns out that the duke had given a half ring to the duchess seven years before, and had bidden her take a second husband if he did not come back in that time. The duke sends a servant to beg a drink of wine of his wife, and returns the cup, as in (3), (4).
(6.) A ballad in nine seven-line stanzas, supposed to be by a Meistersinger, preserved in broadsides of about 1550 and 1603, Böhme, No 5, p. 30, Erk's Wunderhorn, IV, 111. (7.) Hans Sachs's 'Historia,' 1562, in two hundred and four verses, Works, ed. 1578, Buch iv, Theil ii, Blatt lviib-lviiib.[168] (8.) A Meistersingerlied of the end of the 16th century, in three twenty-line stanzas, printed in Idunna u. Hermode for March 27, 1813 (appended to p. 64), and after this, with changes, in Kretzschmer, II, 17, No 5.—These three agree with the foregoing as to the ring.
(9.) Reinfrid von Braunschweig, c. 1300, ed. Bartsch, 1871. Reinfrid is promised by the Virgin, who appears to him thrice in vision, that he shall have issue if he will go over sea to fight the heathen. He breaks a ring which his wife had given him, and gives her one half, vv. 14,906-11. If he dies, she is to marry, for public reasons, vv. 14,398-407; but she is not to believe a report of his death unless she receives his half of the ring back, vv. 14,782-816, 15,040-049. The latter part of the romance not being extant, we do not know the conclusion, but a variation as to the use made of the ring is probable.[169]
The story of Reinfrit is also preserved in a Bohemian prose chap-book printed before 1565. This prose is clearly a poem broken up, and it is believed that the original should be placed in the first half of the 14th century, or possibly at the end of the 13th. The hero returns, in pilgrim's garb, after seven years' absence, to find his wife about to be handed over by her father to another prince. He lets his ring fall into a cup, and goes away; his wife recognizes the ring, and is reunited to him. The story has passed from the Bohemian into Russian and Magyar. Feifalik, Sitzungsberichte der phil.-hist. Classe der Wiener Akademie, XXIX, 83 ff, the ring at p. 92; XXXII, 322 ff.