A tells us, and so F, G, that it was two months before Ellensborg could speak to Peter privately. Then, on a Yule day, when he was going to church, she said, It does not occur to you that you gave me your troth. Sir Peter stood as if women had shorn his hair, and recollected all as if it had been yesterday. In B-E, H, I, L, M, N, this incident has, perhaps, dropped out. In these immediately, as in A, F, G, after this interview, Sir Peter, recalled to his senses or to his fidelity, conceives the purpose of flying with Ellensborg. Good people, he says, knights and swains, ladies and maids, follow my bride to bed, while I take my sister's son over the meads, through the wood, B-E, H, I, N. In A, F, Sir Peter asks the bride how long she will bide while he takes his nephew across the kingdom; in G begs the boon that, since his sister's son is going, he may ride with him, just accompany him to the strand and take leave of him; in L, M, hopes she will not be angry if he convoys his nephew three days on his way. (It is at this point in C, H, I, L, that the bride says it is no sister's son, but a woman.) The bride remarks that there are knights and swains enow to escort his sister's son, and that he might more fitly stay where he is, but Sir Peter persists that he will see his nephew off in person.
Sir Peter and Ellensborg go aboard the ship, he crying, You will see me no more! When they are at sea Ellensborg lets out her hair, A, B, C, H; she wishes that the abandoned bride may now feel the grief which she herself had borne for years. The proceeding is less covert in I, L, M than in the other versions.
As Ellensborg and Peter are making for the ship in D 30, 31 (and G 36, 37, borrowed from D), she says, Tell me, Sir Peter, why would you deceive me so? Sir Peter answers that he never meant to deceive her; it was the lady of Østerland that did it; she had changed his mind. A magical change is meant. This agrees with what is said in A 24, 25 (also F, G), that when Ellensborg got Peter alone to herself, and said, You do not remember that you plighted your troth to me, everything came back to him as if it had happened yesterday. And again in the Färöe copy, L 49, Ellensborg, from the prow, cries to Ingibjörg on the strand, Farewell to thee with thy elf-ways, við títt elvargangi! I have taken to myself my true love that I lent thee so long; implying that Sir Peter had been detained by Circean arts, by a sleepy drench of óminnis öl, or ale of forgetfulness, Icelandic M 14, which, in the light of the other ballads, is to be understood literally, and not figuratively. The feature of a man being made, by magical or other means, to forget a first love who had done and suffered much for him, and being suddenly restored to consciousness and his original predilection, is of the commonest occurrence in traditional tales.[423]
Our English ballad affords no other positive trace of external interference with the hero's will than the far-fetched allegation in C that the choice before him was to accept a duke's daughter or forfeit his lands. The explanation of his inconstancy in H, N, that young men ever were fickle found, is vulgar, and also insufficient, for Beichan returns to his old love per saltum, like one from whose eyes scales have fallen and from whose back a weight has been taken, not tamely, like a facile youth that has swerved. E and K, as already said, distinctly recognize that Beichan was not acting with free mind, and, for myself, I have little doubt that, if we could go back far enough, we should find that he had all along been faithful at heart.
Spanish. A. 'El Conde Sol,' Duran, Romancero, I, 180, No 327, from tradition in Andalusia, by the editor; Wolf and Hofmann, Primavera, II, 48, No 135. In this most beautiful romance the County Sol, named general in great wars between Spain and Portugal, and leaving a young wife dissolved in tears, tells her that she is free to marry if he does not come back in six years. Six pass, and eight, and more than ten, yet the county does not return, nor does there come news of him. His wife implores and obtains leave of her father to go in search of her husband. She traverses France and Italy, land and sea, and is on the point of giving up hope, when one day she sees a herdsman pasturing cows. Whose are these cows? she asks. The County Sol's, is the answer. And whose these wheat-fields, these ewes, these gardens, and that palace? whose the horses I hear neigh? The County Sol's, is the answer in each case.[424] And who that lady that a man folds in his arms? The lady is betrothed to him and the county is to marry her. The countess changes her silken robe for the herdsman's sackcloth, and goes to ask an alms at the county's gate. Beyond all hope, the county comes out himself to bring it. "Whence comest thou, pilgrim?" he asks. She was born in Spain. "How didst thou make thy way hither?" She came to seek her husband, footing the thorns by land, risking the perils of the sea; and when she found him he was about to marry, he had forgotten his faithful wife. "Pilgrim, thou art surely the devil, come to try me." "No devil," she said, "but thy wife indeed, and therefore come to seek thee." Upon this, without a moment's tarrying, the county ordered his horse, took up his wife, and made his best speed to his native castle. The bride he would have taken remained unmarried, for those that put on others' robes are sure to be stripped naked.
B. 'Gerineldo,' taken down in Asturias by Amador de los Rios, Jahrbuch für romanische u. englische Literatur, III, 290, 1861, and the same year (Nigra) in Revista Iberica, I, 51; a version far inferior to A, and differing in no important respect as to the story.
C. 'La boda interrumpida,' Milá, Romancerillo Catalan, p. 221, No 244, seven copies, A-G, none good. A, which is about one third Castilian, relates that war is declared between France and Portugal, and the son of Conde Burgos made general. The countess his wife does nothing but weep. The husband tells her to marry again if he does not come back in seven years. More than seven years are gone, and the lady's father asks why she does not marry. "How can I," she replies, "if the count is living? Give me your blessing, and let me go in search of him." She goes a hundred leagues on foot, in the disguise of a pilgrim. Arrived at a palace she sees pages pass, and asks them for whom a horse is intended. It is for Count Burgos's son, who marries that night. She asks to be directed to the young count, is told that she will find him in the hall, enters, and begs an alms, as coming from Italy and without a penny. The young man says, If you come from Italy, what is the news? Is Conde Bueso's wife living? The pilgrim desires some description of the lady. It seems that she wore a very costly petticoat on her wedding-day. The pilgrim takes off her glove and shows her ring; she also takes off and shows the expensive petticoat. There is great weeping in that palace, for first wives never can be forgotten. Don Bueso and the pilgrim clap hands and go home.
Italian: Piedmontese. A. 'Moran d'Inghilterra,' communicated to Rivista Contemporanea, XXXI, 3, 1862, by Nigra, who gives the variations of four other versions. The daughter of the sultan is so handsome that they know not whom to give her to, but decide upon Moran of England. The first day of his marriage he did nothing but kiss her, the second he wished to leave her, and the third he went off to the war. "When shall you return?" asked his wife. "If not in seven years, marry." She waited seven years, but Moran did not come. His wife went all over England on horseback, and came upon a cowherd. "Whose cows are these?" she asked. They were Moran's. "Has Moran a wife?" This is the day when he is to marry, and if she makes haste she will be in time for the wedding. She spurs her horse, and arrives in season. They offer her to drink in a gold cup. She will drink from no cup that is not her own; she will not drink while another woman is there; she will not drink till she is mistress. Moran throws his arms round her neck, saying, Mistress you ever have been and still shall be.
B. 'Morando,' Ferraro, Canti popolari monferrini, p. 42, No 32, from Alessandria. Murando d'Inghilterra, of the king's household, fell in love with the princess, for which the king sent him off. The lady knocked at his door, and asked when he would come back. In seven years, was the answer, and if not she was to marry. The princess stole a hundred scudi from her father, frizzled her hair French fashion, bought a fashionable suit, and rode three days and nights without touching ground, eating, or drinking. She came upon a laundryman, and asked who was in command there. Murando. She knocked at the door, and Murando asked, Have you come to our wedding? She would come to the dance. At the dance she was recognized by the servants. Murando asked, How came you here? "I rode three days and three nights without touching ground, eating, or drinking." This is my wife, said Murando; and the other lady he bade return to her father.
It is possible that this ballad may formerly have been known in France. Nothing is left and known that shows this conclusively, but there is an approach to the Norse form in a fragment which occurs in several widely separated localities. A lover goes off in November, promising his love to return in December, but does not. A messenger comes to bid the lady, in his name, seek another lover, for he has another love. "Is she fairer than I, or more powerful?" She is not fairer, but more powerful: she makes rosemary flower on the edge of her sleeve, changes the sea into wine and fish into flesh. Bujeaud, I, 203. In 'La Femme Abandonnée,' Puymaigre, I, 72, the lover is married to a Fleming: