'Under the gallows I will not go,
Nor will I rub your red neck, no,
A murderer's bidding I will not do.'
She takes the head by the hair and washes it in a spring, and rides back through the wood. Half-way through she meets Halewijn's mother, who asks after her son; and she tells her that he is gone hunting, that he will never be seen again, that he is dead, and she has his head in her lap. When she came to her father's gate, she blew the horn like any man.
And when the father heard the strain,
He was glad she had come back again.
Thereupon they held a feast,
The head was on the table placed.
Snellaert's copy and the modern three-line ballad have a meeting with father, brother, sister, and mother successively. The maid's answer to each of the first three is that Halewijn is amusing himself with sixteen maids, or to that effect, but to the mother that he is dead, and she has his head in her lap. The mother angrily replies, in B, that if she had given this information earlier she would not have got so far on her way home. The maid retorts, Wicked woman, you are lucky not to have been served as your son; then rides, "like Judith wise," straight to her father's palace, where she blows the horn blithely, and is received with honor and love by the whole court.[29]
Another Flemish version (C) has been lately published under the title, 'Roland,' by which only, we are informed, is this particular form known in Bruges and many parts of Flanders:[30] Chants populaires recueillis à Bruges par Adolphe Lootens et J. M. E. Feys, No 37, p. 60, 183 vv, in sixty-three stanzas, of two, three, four, or five lines. This text dates from the last century, and is given with the most exact fidelity to tradition. It agrees with A as to some main points, but differs not a little as to others. The story sets out thus:
It was a bold Roland,
He loved a lass from England;
He wist not how to get her,
With reading or with writing,
With brawling or with fighting.
Roland has lost Halewyn's art of singing. Louise asks her father if she may go to Roland, to the fair, as all her friends do. Her father refuses: Roland is "een stoute kalant," a bad fellow that betrays pretty maids; he stands with a drawn sword in his hand, and all his soldiers in armor. The daughter says she has seen Roland more than once, and that the tale about the drawn sword and soldiers is not true. This scene is exactly repeated with mother and brother. Louise then tries her shrift-father. He is easier, and does not care where she goes, provided she keeps her honor and does not shame her parents. She tells father, mother, and brother that she has leave from her confessor, makes her toilet as in A, takes the finest horse in the stable, and rides to the wood. There she successively meets Roland's father, mother, and brother, each of whom asks her where she is going, and whether she has any right to the crown she wears. To all she replies, Whether I have or not, be off; I know you not. She does not encounter Roland in the wood, they do not ride together, and there is no gallows-field. She enters Roland's house, where he is lying abed. He bids her gather three rose-wreaths "at his hands" and three at his feet; but when she approaches the foot of the bed he rises, and offers her the choice to lose her honor or kneel before the sword. She chooses the sword, advises him to spare his coat, and, while he is taking it off, strikes off his head, all as in A. The head speaks: Go under the gallows (of which we have heard nothing hitherto), fetch a pot of salve, rub it on my wounds, and they shall straight be well. She declines to follow a murderer's rede, or to learn magic. The head bids her go under the blue stone and fetch a pot of maidens-grease, which also will heal the wounds. This again she refuses to do, in the same terms; then seizes the head by the hair, washes it in a spring, and rides off with it through the wood, duly meeting Roland's father, mother, and brother once more, all of whom challenge her, and to all of whom she answers,
Roland your son is long ago dead;
God has his soul and I his head;
For in my lap here I have his head,
And with the blood my apron is red.
When she came back to the city the drums and the trumpets struck up.[31] She stuck the head out of the window, and cried, "Now I am Roland's bride!" She drew it in, and cried, "Now I am a heroine!"