She begs for three cries, and calls to her father, to God, to her youngest brother. The last is sitting over the wine and hears. He demands of Ulrich where she is, and is told, Upon yon linden, spinning silk. Then ensues this dialogue: Why are your shoes blood-red? Why not? I have shot a dove. That dove my mother bare under her breast. Annie is laid in the grave, and angels sing over her; Ulrich is broken on the wheel, and round him the ravens cry.
There is no remnant or reminiscence of the magical singing in U. Schön Ulrich and Roth Ännchen go on a walk, and come first to a fir-tree, then a green mead. The next scene is exactly as in T. Ulrich says the eleven maids were his wives, and that he had thrust his sword through their hearts. Annie asks for three sighs, and directs them to God, to Jesus, and to her youngest brother. He is sitting over his wine, when the sigh comes into the window, and Ulrich simultaneously in at the door. The remainder is very much as in T.
V differs from U only in the names, which are Schön-Heinrich and Schön-Ännelein, and in the "sighs" returning to cries, which invoke God, father, and brother.
W begins with a rivalry between Ulrich and Hanselein[51] for the hand of Rautendelein (Rautendchen). Ulrich is successful. She packs up her jewels, and he takes her to a wood, where she sees eleven maids hanging. He assures her she shall presently be the twelfth. It is then they sit down, and she leans her head on his breast and weeps, "because," as she says, "I must die." His remark upon this, if there was any, is lost. Hoffmann inserts a stanza from another Silesian copy, in which Ulrich says, Rather than spare thy life, I will run an iron stake through thee. She asks for three cries, and he says, Four, if you want. She prefers four, and calls to her father, mother, sister, brother. The brother, as he sits over the wine, hears the cry, and almost instantly Ulrich comes in at the door. He pretends to have killed a dove; the brother knows what dove, and hews off Ulrich's head, with a speech like that in I. Still, as Rautendchen is brought to the grave, with toll of bells, so Ulrich is mounted on the wheel, where ravens shriek over him.
X. Albrecht and Hänselein woo Alalein. She is promised to Albrecht, but Hänsel gets her. He takes her to a green mead, spreads his mantle on the grass, and she sits down. His lying in her lap and her discovery of the awful tree are lost. She weeps, and he tells her she shall be "his eleventh." Her cries are condensed into one stanza:
'Gott Vater, Sohn, Herr Jesu Christ,
Mein jüngster Bruder, wo Du bist!'
Her brother rides in the direction of the voice, and meets Hänselein in the wood, who says Alalein is sitting with princes and counts. The conclusion is as in T, U, V.
Y has Ansar Uleraich wooing a king's daughter, Annle, to the eighth year. He takes her to a fir-wood, then to a fir, a stump of a tree, a spring; in each case bidding her sit down. At the spring he asks her if she wishes to be drowned, and, upon her saying no, cuts off her head. He has not walked half a mile before he meets her brother. The brother inquires where Ulrich has left his sister, and the reply is, "By the green Rhine." The conclusion is as in W. Ulrich loses his head, and the brother pronounces the imprecation which is found there and in I.[52]
Z, which takes us back from Eastern Germany to the Rhine, combines features from all the three groups. Ulrich fascinates a king's daughter by his song. She collects her gold and jewels, as in W, and goes to a wood, where a dove warns her that she will be betrayed. Ulrich appropriates her valuables, and they wander about till they come to the Rhine. There he takes her into a wood, and gives her a choice between hanging and drowning, and, she declining both, says she shall die by his sword. But first she is allowed three cries,—to God, her parents, her youngest brother. The youngest brother demands of Ulrich where he has left his sister. "Look in my pocket, and you shall find fourteen tongues, and the last cut [reddest] of all is your sister's." The words were scarcely out of his mouth before Ulrich's sword had taken off his head.
The three classes of the German ballad, it will be observed, have for their principal distinction that in I the maid saves her own life by an artifice, and takes the life of her treacherous suitor; in II, she is rescued by her brother, who also kills the traitor; in III, she dies by the villain's hand, and he by her brother's, or by a public execution. There are certain subordinate traits which are constant, or nearly so, in each class. In I, A-F, a choice of deaths is invariably offered; the maid gets the advantage of the murderer by persuading him to take off his coat [distorted in F, which has lost its conclusion]; and, on her way home, she falls in with one or more of the robber's family, mother, brothers, servant, who interrogate her [except F, which, as just said, is a fragment]. Class II has several marks of its own. All the thirteen ballads [G-S], except the last, represent the knight as fascinating the maid by his singing; in all but Q she is warned of her danger by a dove,[53] or more than one; in all but the much-abridged M, N, the knight spreads his cloak on the grass, they sit down, and, excepting M, N, R, the unromantic service is repeated which she undertakes in Danish A, B, D, E, F, H, L, Swedish A, Norwegian A, B. The bloody spring occurs in some form, though often not quite intelligible, in H, J, K, L, O, P, Q, R (also in D, Y). All but the much-abridged M, N have the question, What are you weeping for? your father's land, humbled pride, lost honor? etc.; but this question recurs in T, U, V, W. The cries for help are a feature of both the second and the third class, and are wanting only in Y. Class III differs from I, and resembles II, in having the cries for help, and, in the less impaired forms, T-W, the knight spreads his cloak, lies down with his head in the lady's lap, and asks the cause of her tears. Beyond this, and the changed catastrophe, the ballads of Class III are distinguished by what they have lost.