[311] Excepting the two satirical stanzas with which Scott's version (C) concludes. "The repugnance of Thomas to be debarred the use of falsehood when he should find it convenient," may have, as Scott says, "a comic effect," but is, for a ballad, a miserable conceit. Both ballad and romance are serious.
[312] Eildon Tree, the site of which is supposed now to be marked by the Eildon Tree Stone, stood, or should have stood, on the slope of the eastern of the three Eildon Hills. Huntly Banks are about half a mile to the west of the Eildon Stone, on the same hill-slope. Erceldoun, a village on the Leader, two miles above its junction with the Tweed, is all but visible from the Eildon Stone. Murray, pp l-lii.
[313] In B 2, absurdly, the lady holds nine bells in her hand. Ringing or jingling bridles are ascribed to fairies, Tam Lin, A 37, Cromek's Remains of Nithsdale and Galloway Song, p. 298 ("manes hung wi whustles that the win played on," p. 299). The fairy's saddle has a bordure of bells in the English Launfal, Halliwell's Illustrations of Fairy Mythology, p. 31, but not in Marie's lai. The dwarf-king Antiloie, in Ulrich Von Eschenbach's Alexander, has bells on his bridle: Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie, I, 385. These bells, however, are not at all distinctive of fairies, but are the ordinary decoration of elegant "outriders" in the Middle Ages, especially of women. In the romance of Richard Cœur de Lion, a messenger's trappings ring with five hundred bells. Besides the bridle, bells were sometimes attached to the horse's breastplate, to the saddle-bow, crupper, and stirrups. Conde Claros's steed has three hundred around his breastplate. See Weber's Metrical Romances, R.C. de Lion, vv 1514-17, 5712-14, cited by T. Wright, History of Domestic Manners in England, 214 f; Liebrecht, Gervasius, p. 122; Kölbing, Englische Studien, III, 105; Zupitza and Varnhagen, Anglia, III, 371, IV, 417; and particularly A. Schultz, Das höfische Leben zur Zeit der Minnesinger, I, 235, 388-91.
[314] The original I suppose to be the very cheerful tale of Ogier, with which the author of Thomas of Erceldoune has blended a very serious one, without any regard to the irreconcilableness of the two. He is presently forced to undo this melancholy transformation of the fairy, as we shall see. Brandl, 'Thomas of Erceldoune,' p. 20, cites from Giraldus Cambrensis, Itinerarium Cambriæ, I, 5, a story about one Meilyr, a Welshman, the like of which our poet had in mind. This Meilyr was a great soothsayer, and "owed his skill to the following adventure:" Being in company one evening with a girl for whom he had long had a passion, desideratis amplexibus atque deliciis cum indulsisset, statim loco puellæ formosæ formam quamdam villosam, hispidam et hirsutam, adeoque enormiter deformem invenit, quod in ipso ejusdem aspectu dementire cœpit et insanire. Meilyr recovered his reason after several years, through the merits of the saints, but always kept up an intimacy with unclean spirits, and by their help foretold the future. It is not said that they gave him the tongue that never could lie, but no other tongue could lie successfully in his presence: he always saw a little devil capering on it. He was able, by similar indications, to point out the lies and errors of books. The experiment being once tried of laying the Gospel of John in his lap, every devil instantly decamped. Geoffrey of Monmouth's history was substituted, and imps swarmed all over the book and him, too.
[315] B 83,4 "It was a' that cursed fruit o thine beggared man and woman in your countrie:" the fruit of the Forbidden Tree.
[316] Purgatory is omitted in the Cotton MS. of the romance, as in the ballad.
[317] Ogier le Danois hardly exceeded the proportion of the ordinary hyperbole of lovers: two hundred years seemed but twenty. The British king Herla lived with the king of the dwarfs more than two hundred years, and thought the time but three days: Walter Mapes, Nugæ Curialium, ed. Wright, p. 16 f (Liebrecht). The strongest case, I believe, is the exquisite legend, versified by Trench, of the monk, with whom three hundred years passed, while he was listening to a bird's song—as he thought, less than three hours. For some of the countless repetitions of the idea, see Pauli's Schimpf und Ernst, ed. Oesterley, No 562, and notes, p. 537; Liebrecht's Gervasins, p. 89; W. Hertz, Deutsche Sage im Elsass, pp 115-18, 263; A. Graf, La Leggenda del Paradiso Terrestre, pp 26-29, 31-33, and notes; J. Koch, Die Siebenschläferlegende, kap. ii.
[318] In an exquisite little ballad obtained by Tommaseo from a peasant-girl of Empoli, I, 26, a lover who had visited hell, and there met and kissed his mistress, is told by her that he must not hope ever to go thence. How the lover escaped in this instance is not explained. Such things happen sometimes, but not often enough to encourage one to take the risk.
Sono stato all' inferno, e son tornato:
Misericordia, la gente che c'era!
V'era una stanza tutta illuminata,
E dentro v'era la speranza mia.
Quando mi vedde, gran festa mi fece,
E poi mi disse: Dolce anima mia,
Non ti arricordi del tempo passato,
Quando tu mi dicevi, "anima mia?"
Ora, mio caro ben, baciami in bocca,
Baciami tanto ch'io contenta sia.
È tanto saporita la tua bocca!
Di grazia saporisci anco la mia.
Ora, mio caro ben, che m'hai baciato,
Di qui non isperar d'andarne via.
[319] A 8, 9, R 34, 35. It was not that Thomas was about to pluck fruit from the Forbidden Tree, though B understands it so: cf. R 32, 33. The curse of this tree seems, however, to have affected all Paradise. In modern Greek popular poetry Paradise occurs sometimes entirely in the sense of Hades. See B. Schmidt, Volksleben der Neugriechen, p. 249.