The maid has the door by the handle,
And is wishing them all good-night;
Young Karl, that lay a corpse on the bier,
Sprang up and held her tight.
'Why here's a board and benches,
And there's no dead body here;
This eve I'll drink my mead and wine,
All with my Kirstin dear.
'Why here's a board and beds too,
And here there's nobody dead;
To-morrow will I go to the priest,
All with my plighted maid.'
F, another copy from recent tradition, was published in 1875, in Kristensen's Jyske Folkeviser, II, 213, No 62, 'Vaagestuen.' There is no word of a convent here. The story is made very short. Kirsten's mother says she will be fooled if she goes to the wake. The last stanza, departing from all other copies, says that when Kirsten woke in the morning Karl was off.
G. 'Klosterranet,' Levninger, I, 23, No 4 (1780), Danske Viser, IV, 261, No 212, a very second-rate ballad, may have the praise of preserving consistency and conventual discipline. The young lady does not slip out to see her mother without leave asked and had. It is my persuasion that the convent, with its little jest about the poor nuns, is a later invention, and that C is a blending of two different stories. In G, Herr Morten betroths Proud Adeluds, who is more virtuous than rich. His friends object; her friends do not want spirit, and swear that she shall never be his. Morten's father sends him out of the country, and Adeluds is put into a convent. After nine years Morten returns, and, having rejected an advantageous match proposed by his father, advises with his brother, Herr Nilaus, how to get his true love out of the cloister. The brother's plan is that of the mother and foster-mother in the other versions. Herr Nilaus promises a rich gift if Morten's body may be buried within the cloister. From this point the story is materially the same as in C.
H. A copy, which I have not yet seen, in Rahbek's Læsning i blandede Æmner (or Hesperus), III, 151, 1822 (Bergström).
'Hertugen af Skage,' Danske Viser, II, 191, No 88, has this slight agreement with the foregoing ballads. Voldemar, the king's youngest son, hearing that the duke has a daughter, Hildegerd, that surpasses all maids, seeks her out in a convent in which she has taken refuge, and gets a cold reception. He feigns death, desiring that his bones may repose in the cloister. His bier is carried into the convent church. Hildegerd lights nine candles for him, and expresses compassion for his early death. While she is standing before the altar of the Virgin, Voldemar carries her out of the church by force.
This, says Afzelius, 1814, is one of the commonest ballads in Sweden, and is often represented as a drama by young people in country places. A a, 'Herr Carl, eller Klosterrofvet,' Afzelius, I, 179, No 26, new ed. No 24; b, Afzelius, Sago-Häfder, ed. 1851, IV, 106. B, Atterbom, Poetisk Kalender for 1816, p. 63, 'Det Iefvande Liket.' C. Rancken, Några Prof af Folksång, o. s. v., p. 13, No 4. These differ but slightly from Danish D, E. All three conclude with the humorous verses about the nuns, which in Rancken's copy take this rollicking turn: