This is, according to Afzelius, one of the commonest of Swedish ballads. These versions are known: A, "a broadside of 1798 and 1802," Grundtvig, II, 531, Bergström's Afzelius, I, 335; B, 'Magdalena,' Atterbom's Poetisk Kalender for 1816, p. 20; C, Afzelius, II, 229; D, Arwidsson, I, 377, No 60; E, Dybeck's Svenska Visor, Häfte 2, No 6, only two stanzas; F, G, "in Wiede's collection, in the Swedish Historical and Antiquarian Academy;" H, "in Cavallius and Stephens' collection, where also A, F, G are found;" I, Maximilian Axelson's Vesterdalarne, p. 171; J, 'Jungfru Adelin,' E. Wigström's Folkdiktning, No 38, p. 76; K, 'Jungfru Maja,' Album utgifvet af Nyländingar, VI, 227. A-F are printed in Grundtvig's notes, II, 533 ff, and also some verses of G, H.

The ballad is known to have existed in Icelandic from a minute of Arne Magnusson, who cites the line, "Swear not, swear not, wretched woman," but it has not been recovered (Grundtvig, III, 891, note d).

Finnish, 'Mataleenan vesimatka,' Kanteletar, ed. 1864, p. 240.

The story of the woman of Samaria, John, iv, is in all these blended with mediæval traditions concerning Mary Magdalen, who is assumed to be the same with the woman "which was a sinner," in Luke, vii, 37, and also with Mary, sister of Lazarus. This is the view of the larger part of the Latin ecclesiastical writers, while most of the Greeks distinguish the three (Butler, 'Lives of the Saints,' VII, 290, note). It was reserved for ballads, as Grundtvig remarks, to confound the Magdalen with the Samaritan woman.

The traditional Mary Magdalen was a beautiful woman of royal descent, who derived her surname from Magdalum, her portion of the great family estate. For some of her earlier years entirely given over to carnal delights, "unde jam, proprio nomine perdito, peccatrix consueverat appellari," she was, by the preaching of Jesus, converted to a passionate repentance and devotedness. In the course of the persecution of the church at Jerusalem, when Stephen was slain and the Christians widely dispersed, Mary, with Lazarus, her brother, Martha, and many more, were set afloat on the Mediterranean in a rudderless ship, with the expectation that they would find a watery grave. But the malice of the unbelieving was overruled, and the vessel came safe into port at Marseilles. Having labored some time for the christianizing of the people, and founded churches and bishoprics, Mary retired to a solitude where there was neither water, tree, nor plant, and passed the last thirty years of her life in heavenly contemplation. The cave in which she secluded herself is still shown at La Sainte Baume. The absence of material comforts was, in her case, not so great a deprivation, since every day at the canonical hours she was carried by angels to the skies, and heard, with ears of the flesh, the performances of the heavenly choirs, whereby she was so thoroughly refected that when the angels restored her to her cave she was in need of no bodily aliment. (Golden Legend, Græsse, c. 96.) It is the practical Martha that performs real austerities, and those which are ascribed to her correspond too closely with the penance in the Scandinavian ballads not to be the original of it: "Nam in primis septem annis, glandibus et radicibus herbisque crudis et pomis[182] silvestribus corpusculum sustentans potius quam reficiens, victitavit.... Extensis solo ramis arboreis aut viteis, lapide pro cervicali capiti superposito subjecto, ... incumbebat." (Vincent of Beauvais, Spec. Hist., ix, 100.)

The best-preserved Scandinavian ballads concur nearly in this account. A woman at a well, or a stream, is approached by Jesus, who asks for drink. She says she has no vessel to serve him with. He replies that if she were pure, he would drink from her hands. She protests innocence with oaths, but is silenced by his telling her that she has had three children, one with her father, one with her brother, one with her parish priest: Danish A, B, C; Färöe; Swedish C, D, F, I, J, K; Norwegian A, C, F, G. She falls at his feet, and begs him to shrive her. Jesus appoints her a seven years' penance in the wood. Her food shall be the buds or the leaves of the tree [grass, worts, berries, bark], her drink the dew [brook, juice of plants], her bed the hard ground [linden-roots, thorns and prickles, rocks, straw and sticks]; all the while she shall be harassed by bears and lions [wolves], or snakes and drakes (this last in Swedish B, C, D, I, K, Norwegian A). The time expired, Jesus returns and asks how she has liked her penance. She answers, as if she had eaten daintily, drunk wine, slept on silk or swan's-down, and had angelic company [had been listening to music].[183] Jesus then tells her that a place is ready for her in heaven.

The penance lasts eight years in Swedish C, F, J, Norwegian A; nine in the Färöe ballad; fifteen in Danish B; and six weeks in Danish C. It is to range the field in Danish A, Swedish F; to walk the snows barefoot in the Färöe ballad and Norwegian B; in Norwegian D to stand nine years in a rough stream and eight years naked in the church-paths.

The names Maria, or Magdalena, Jesus, or Christ, are found in most of the Scandinavian ballads. Swedish E has 'Lena (Lilla Lena); Swedish H He-lena; J, Adelin; K, Maja. Norwegian A gives no name to the woman, and Danish A a name only in the burden; Norwegian B has, corruptly, Margjit. In Danish C, Norwegian B, G, Jesus is called an old man, correspondingly with the "old palmer" of English A, but the old man is afterwards called Jesus in Norwegian G (B is not printed in full), and in the burden of Danish C. The Son is exchanged for the Father in Swedish D.

Stanzas 4, 5 of Swedish A, G, approach singularly near to English A 6, 7:

Swedish A: