In other cases we find the hero in prison. He was put in for thirty days; the keys are lost, and he stays thirty years. Legrand, p. 326, No 145; [a]Νεοελληνικα Αναλεκτα], I, 85, No 19. More frequently he is a galley slave: Zambelios, p. 678, No 103 == Passow, No 448; Tommaseo, III, 152 == Passow, No 449; Sakellarios, [a]Κυπριακα], III, 37, No 13: [a]Νεοελληνικα Αναλεκτα], I, 86, No 20; Jeannaraki, [a]Ἁσματα κρητικα], p. 203, No 265. His bad dream galley.[176] In Tommaseo, III, 152, on reaching the church, he cries, "Stand aside, gentlemen, stand aside, my masters; let the bride pour for me." She pours him one cup and two, and exclaims (the ring which was dropped into the cup having dropped out of the story), My John has come back! Then they both "go out like candles." In Sakellarios they embrace and fall dead, and when laid in the grave come up as a cypress and a citron tree. In the Cretan ballad John does not dismount, but takes the bride on to the horse and is off with her; so in the beautiful ballad in Fauriel, II, 140, No 11, '[a]Ἡ Ἁρπαγη],' "peut-être la plus distinguée de ce recueil," which belongs with this group, but seems to be later at the beginning and the end. Even here the bride takes a cup to pour a draught for the horseman.
In Russia the ring story is told of Dobrynya and Nastasya. Dobrynya, sent out shortly after his marriage to collect tribute for Vladimir, requests Nastasya to wait for him twelve years: then she may wed again, so it be not with Alesha. Twelve years pass. Alesha avows that he has seen Dobrynya's corpse lying on the steppe, and sues for her hand. Vladimir supports the suit, and Nastasya is constrained to accept this prohibited husband. Dobrynya's horse [two doves, a pilgrim] reveals to his master what is going on, and carries him home with marvellous speed. Dobrynya gains admittance to the wedding-feast in the guise of a merry-maker, and so pleases Vladimir with his singing that he is allowed to sit where he likes. He places himself opposite Nastasya, drops his ring in a cup, and asks her to drink to him. She finds the ring in the bottom, falls at his feet and implores pardon.[177] Wollner, Volksepik der Grossrussen, p. 122 f; Rambaud, La Russie Épique, p. 86 f.
We have the ring employed somewhat after the fashion of these western tales in Somadeva's story of Vidúshaka. The Vidyúdhárí Bhadrá, having to part for a while with Vidúshaka, for whom she had conceived a passion, gives him her ring. Subsequently, Vidúshaka obliges a rakshas whom he has subdued to convey him to the foot of a mountain on which Bhadrá had taken refuge. Many beautiful girls come to fetch water in golden pitchers from a lake, and, on inquiring, Vidúshaka finds that the water is for Bhadrá. One of the girls asks him to lift her pitcher on to her shoulder, and while doing this he drops into the pitcher Bhadrá's ring. When the water is poured on Bhadrá's hands, the ring falls out. Bhadrá asks her maids if they have seen a stranger. They say they have seen a mortal, and that he had helped one of them with her pitcher. They are ordered to go for the youth at once, for he is Bhadrá's consort.[178]
According to the letter of the ballads, should the ring given Horn by his lady turn wan or blue, this would signify that she loved another man: but though accuracy would be very desirable in such a case, these words are rather loose, since she never faltered in her love, and submitted to marry another, so far as she submitted, only under constraint. 'Horn Child,' sts 48, 71, agrees with the ballads as to this point. We meet a ring of similar virtue in 'Bonny Bee-Hom,' Jamieson's Popular Ballads, I, 187, and Buchan's Ballads of the North of Scotland, I, 169.
'But gin this ring should fade or fail,
Or the stone should change its hue,
Be sure your love is dead and gone,
Or she has proved untrue.'
Jamieson, p. 191.
In the Roumanian ballad, 'Ring and Handkerchief,' a prince going to war gives his wife a ring: if it should rust, he is dead. She gives him a gold-embroidered handkerchief: if the gold melts, she is dead. Alecsandri, Poesiĭ pop. ale Românilor, p. 20, No 7; Stanley, Rouman Anthology, p. 16, p. 193. In Gonzenbach's Sicilianische Märchen, I, 39, No 7, a prince, on parting with his sister, gives her a ring, saying, So long as the stone is clear, I am well: if it is dimmed, that is a sign that I am dead. So No 5, at p. 23. A young man, in a Silesian story, receives a ring from his sweetheart, with the assurance that he can count upon her faith as long as the ring holds; and after twenty years' detention in the mines of Siberia, is warned of trouble by the ring's breaking: Goedsche, Schlesischer Sagen- Historien- u. Legendenschatz, I, 37, No 16. So in some copies of 'Lamkin,' the lord has a foreboding that some ill has happened to his lady from the rings on his fingers bursting in twain: Motherwell, p. 291, st. 23; Finlay, II, 47, st. 30.[179]
Hind Horn is translated by Grundtvig, Eng. og sk. Folkeviser, p. 274, No 42, mainly after the copy in Motherwell's Minstrelsy; by Rosa Warrens, Schottische V. l. der Vorzeit, p. 161, No 37, after Buchan (H); by Knortz, L. u. R. Alt-Englands, p. 184, No 52, after Allingham.