[349] Engelhardt, pp 6, 13 f: Sagen aus Baden und der Umgegend, Carlsruhe, 1834, pp 107-122.
[350] Separately printed, under the title, Elveskud, dansk, svensk, norsk, færøsk, islandsk, skotsk, vendisk, bømisk, tysk, fransk, italiensk, katalonsk, spansk, bretonsk Folkevise, i overblik ved Svend Grundtvig. Kjøbenhavn, 1881.
[351] All the Norse versions are in two-line stanzas.
[352] In 'Jomfruen og Dværgekongen,' C 25, 26, Grundtvig, No 37, the woman who has been carried off to the hill, wishing to die, asks that atter-corns may be put into her drink. She evidently gets, however, only the villar-konn, elvar-konn, of Landstad, Nos 42-45, which are of lethean property. But in J. og D. F, we may infer an atter-corn, though none is mentioned, from the effect of the draughts, which is that belt, stays, and sark successively burst. See p. 363 f.
[353] So, also, Swedish A, F, Norwegian A, C. This is a cantrip sleight of the elves. The Icelandic burden supposes this illumination, "The low was burning red;" and when Olaf seeks to escape, in Norwegian A, C, E, G, I, K, he has to make his way through the elf-flame, elvelogi.
[354] Grundtvig remarks that Herder's translation, 'Erlkönigs Tochter,' Volkslieder, II, 158, took so well with the Germans that at last it came to pass for an original German ballad. The Wunderhorn, I, 261, ed. 1806, gives it with the title, 'Herr Olof,' as from a flying sheet (== Scherer's Deutsche Volkslieder, 1851, p. 371). It appears, with some little changes, in Zarnack's Deutsche Volkslieder, 1819, I, 29, whence it passed into Erlach, IV, 6, and Richter und Marschner, p. 60. Kretzschmer has the translation, again, with a variation here and there, set to a "North German" and to a "Westphalian" air, p. 8, p. 9.
[355] Owing to a close resemblance of circumstances in 'The Elf-shot,' in 'Frillens Hævn' ('The Leman's Wreak'), Grundtvig, No 208, and in 'Ribold og Guldborg,' Grundtvig, No 82, these ballads naturally have details in common. The pretence that the horse was not sure-footed and hurtled his rider against a tree; the request to mother, father, etc., to make the bed, take care of the horse, apply a bandage, send for a priest, etc.; the testament, the assignment of the bride by the dying man to his brother, and her declaration that she will never give her troth to two brothers; and the nearly simultaneous death of hero, bride, and mother, occur in many versions of both Elveskud and Ribold, and most of them in Frillens Hævn. A little Danish ballad, 'Hr. Olufs Død,' cited by Grundtvig, IV, 847, seems to be Elveskud with the elf-shot omitted.
[356] Luzel was in possession of other versions, but he assures us that every detail is contained in one or the other of these three.
[357] B 13, "You must marry me straightway, or give me my weight in silver;" then, "or die in three days," etc. It is not impossible that this stanza, entirely out of place in this ballad, was derived from 'Le Comte des Chapelles,' Luzel, p. 457, from which certain French versions have taken a part of their story. See Luzel, the eighth and ninth stanzas, on p. 461.
[358] B 50, "A white gown, or broget, or my violet petticoat?" Luzel says he does not understand broget, and in his Observations, prefixed to the volume, expresses a conjecture that it must have been altered from droged, robe d'enfant, robe de femme, but we evidently want a color. Grundtvig remarks that broget would make sense in Danish, where it means party-colored. Scotch broakit is black and white. Icelandic brók, tartan, party-colored cloth, is said to be from Gaelic breac, versicolor (Vigfusson). This points to a suitable meaning for Breton broget.