[359] D adds: "It was a marvel to see, the night after husband and wife had been buried, two oaks rise from the common tomb, and on their branches two white doves, which sang there at daybreak, and then took flight for the skies."
[360] It will be observed that some of the Renaud ballads in the Poésies populaires de la France were derived from earlier publications: such as were communicated by collectors appear to have been sent in in 1852 or 1853. The versions cited by Rathery, Revue Critique, II, 287 ff, are all from the MS. Poésies populaires. BB, CC have either been overlooked by me in turning over the first five volumes, or occur in vol. vi, which has not yet been received. GG came to hand too late to be ranked at its proper place.
[361] In C the mother-in-law tells her daughter, austerely:
Vous aurez plutôt trouvé un mari
Que moi je n'aurai trouvé un fils.
So E, nearly. A mother makes a like remark to the betrothed of a dead son in the Danish ballad of 'Ebbe Tygesen,' Grundtvig, Danske Kæmpeviser og Folkesange, fornyede i gammel Stil, 1867, p. 122, st. 14. F and T conclude with these words of the wife:
'Ma mère, dites au fossoyeur
Qu'il creuse une fosse pour deux;
'Et que l'espace y soit si grand
Que l'on y mette aussi l'enfant.'
The burial of father, mother, and child in a common grave is found elsewhere in ballads, as in 'Redselille og Medelvold,' Grundtvig, No 271, A 37, G 20, M 26, X 27.
[362] Shutting our eyes to other Romance versions, or, we may say, opening them to Scandinavian ones, we might see in these stabs the wounds made by the elf-knives in Danish D, G, H, N, O, R, X, Swedish G, Norwegian H, I. See 'Don Joan y Don Ramon,' further on.
[363] The ballad of 'Luggieri,' published by Salvatori in the Rassegna Settimanale, Rome, June 22, 1879, and reprinted by Nigra in Romania, XI, 391 (a variety of 'Rizzardo bello,' Wolf, Volkslieder aus Venetien, p. 62, No 83), appears to me not to belong with 'Renaud,' but with the class of 'The Cruel Brother,' as already remarked of the Venetian ballad at p. 142.
[364] The version in the Recuerdos was obtained in Majorca by Don J. M. Quadrado. The editor remarks that the employment of the articles Il and La instead of Es and Sa proves it to be as old as the sixteenth century. Die Balearen, etc., is cited after Grundtvig.