It is scarcely necessary to remark that this ballad, like too many others, has suffered severely by the accidents of tradition. A has been not simply damaged by passing through low mouths, but has been worked over by low hands. Something considerable has been lost from the story, and fine romantic features, preserved in Norse and German ballads, have been quite effaced.
Margaret, a king's daughter, A, an earl's daughter, B, a lady of noble birth, C, as she sits sewing in her bower door, hears a note in Elmond's wood and wishes herself there, A. The wood is Amon-shaw in C, Mulberry in B: the Elmond (Amond, Elfman?) is probably significant. So far the heroine resembles Lady Isabel in No 4, who, sewing in her bower, hears an elf-horn, and cannot resist the enchanted tone. Margaret makes for the wood as fast as she can go. The note that is heard in A is mistaken in B for nuts: Margaret, as she stands in her bower door, spies some nuts growing in the wood, and wishes herself there. Arrived at the wood, Margaret, in A as well as B, immediately takes to pulling nuts.[334] The lady is carried off in C under cover of a magical mist, and the hero in all is no ordinary hind.
Margaret has hardly pulled a nut, when she is confronted by young Akin, A, otherwise, and correctly, called Etin in B, a hind of giant strength in both, who accuses her of trespassing, and stops her. Akin pulls up the highest tree in the wood and builds a bower, invisible to passers-by, for their habitation. B, which recognizes no influence of enchantment upon the lady's will, as found in A, and no prepossession on her part, as in C, makes Hind Etin pull up the biggest tree in the forest as well, but it is to scoop out a cave many fathoms deep, in which he confines Margaret till she comes to terms, and consents to go home with him, wherever that may be. Hastings, another corruption of Etin, carries off the lady on his horse to the wood, "where again their loves are sworn," and there they take up their abode in a cave of stone, C 9. Lady Margaret lives with the etin seven years, and bears him seven sons, A 9; many years, and bears seven sons, B; ten years, and bears seven bairns, C 6, 8, 9.[335]
Once upon a time the etin goes hunting, and takes his eldest boy with him. The boy asks his father why his mother is so often in tears, and the father says it is because she was born of high degree, but had been stolen by him; "is wife of Hynde Etin, wha ne'er got christendame," B 15. The etin, who could pull the highest tree in the wood up by the roots, adds in A 15 that when he stole his wife he was her father's cup-bearer! and that he caught her "on a misty night," which reminds us of the mist which Young Hastings, "the groom," cast before the lady's attendants when he carried her off.
The next time Akin goes hunting he leaves his young comrade behind, and the boy tells his mother that he heard "fine music ring" when he was coming home, on the other occasion. She wishes she had been there. He takes his mother and six brothers, and they make their way through the wood at their best speed, not knowing in what direction they are going. But luckily they come to the gate of the king, the father and grandfather of the band. The mother sends her eldest boy in with three rings, to propitiate the porter, the butler-boy, who acts as usher in this particular palace, and the minstrel who plays before the king. His majesty is so struck with the resemblance of the boy to his daughter that he is blinded with tears. The boy informs his grandfather that his mother is standing at the gates, with six more brothers, and the king orders that she be admitted. He asks her to dine, but she can touch nothing till she has seen her mother and sister. Admitted to her mother, the queen in turn says, You will dine with me; but she can touch nothing till she has seen her sister. Her sister, again, invites her to dine, but now she can touch nothing till she has seen her "dear husband." Rangers are sent into the wood to fetch Young Akin, under promise of a full pardon. He is found tearing his yellow hair. The king now asks Akin to dine with him, and there appears to have been a family dinner. While this is going on the boy expresses a wish to be christened, "to get christendoun;" in all his eight years he had never been in a church. The king promises that he shall go that very day with his mother, and all seven of the boys seem to have got their christendoun; and so, we may hope, did Hind Etin, who was, if possible, more in want of it than they; B 15, 19.
In this story A and B pretty nearly agree. C has nothing of the restoration of the lady to her parents and home. The mother, in this version, having harped her seven bairns asleep, sits down and weeps bitterly. She wishes, like Fair Annie, that they were rats, and she a cat, to eat them one and all. She has lived ten years in a stone cave, and has never had a churching. The eldest boy suggests that they shall all go to some church: they be christened and she be churched. This is accomplished without any difficulty, and, as the tale stands, we can only wonder that it had not been attempted before.
The etin of the Scottish story is in Norse and German a dwarf-king, elf-king, hill-king, or even a merman. The ballad is still sung in Scandinavia and Germany, but only the Danes have versions taken down before the present century.
Danish. 'Jomfruen og Dværgekongen,' Grundtvig, No 37, A-C from manuscripts of the sixteenth century. A-G, Grundtvig, II, 39-46; H, I, III, 806-808; K-T, IV, 795-800, P-S being short fragments. K previously in "Fylla," a weekly newspaper, 1870, Nos 23, 30; L-O, Q, R, 'Agnete i Bjærget,' in Kristensen's Jyske Folkeviser, II, 72, 77, 349, 74, I, xxxi, II, 79; U, a short fragment, Danske Viser, V, x, xi.
Swedish. 'Den Bergtagna,' A, B, Afzelius, I, 1, No 1, II, 201. C, 'Bergkonungen,' Afzelius, II, 22, No 35. D, E, 'Herr Elver, Bergakonungen,' Arwidsson, II, 277, No 141 B, II, 275, No 141 A. F, 'Jungfrun och Bergakonungen,' Arwidsson, II, 280, No 142. G, 'Agneta och Bergamannen,' Wigström, Folkdiktning, p. 13. H, 'Jungfrun och Bergamannen,' the same, p. 21. I, K, L, in Cavallius and Stephens' manuscript collection (K, L, fragments), given by Grundtvig, IV, 803. M, F. L. Borgströms Folkvisor, No 11, described by Grundtvig, IV, 802. N, Werner's Westergötlands Fornminnen, p. 93 f, two stanzas.
Norwegian. A, B,[336] C, 'Liti Kersti, som vart inkvervd,' Landstad, p. 431, No 42, p. 442, No 44, p. 446, No 45. D, 'Margit Hjuxe, som vart inkvervd,' the same, p. 451, No 46. E, F, 'Målfri,' 'Antonetta,' Grundtvig, IV, 801 f, the last evidently derived from Denmark. G-P, nine versions communicated to Grundtvig by Professor Sophus Bugge, and partially described in Danmarks gamle Folkeviser, III, 808-10. Lindeman gives the first stanza of A with airs No 214, No 262 of his Fjeldmelodier, and perhaps had different copies. Nos 323, 320 may also have been versions of this ballad. C, rewritten, occurs in J. M. Moe og Ivar Mortensen's Norske Fornkvæde og Folkevisur, p. 16. Mixed forms, in which the ballad proper is blended with another, Landstad, No 43 == Swedish, Arwidsson, No 145; eight, communicated by Bugge, Grundtvig, III, 810-13; two others, IV, 483 f.[337]