[198] b, third paragraph. Other versions of 'Le Retour du Mari:' Fleury, Littérature Orale de la Basse-Normandie, p. 268; E. Legrand, Romania, X, 374, also from Normandy.
A ballad of the nature of 'Le Retour du Mari' is very popular in Poland: Kolberg, No 22, pp 224 ff, some dozen copies; Wojcicki, I, 287; Wojcicki, II, 311 == Kolberg's c; Lipinski, p. 159 == Kolberg's i; Konopka, p. 121, No 20; Kozłowski, No 5, p. 35, p. 36, two copies. In Moravian, 'První milejší,' 'The First Love,' Sušil, No 135, p. 131. The general course of the story is that a young man has to go to the war the day of his wedding or the day after. He commits his bride to her mother, saying, Keep her for me seven years; and if I do not then come back, give her to whom you please. He is gone seven years, and, returning then, asks for his wife. She has just been given to another. He asks for a fiddle [pipe], and says he will go to the wedding. They advise him to stay away, for there will be a disturbance. No, he will only stand at the door and play. The bride jumps over four tables, and makes a courtesy to him on a fifth, welcomes him and dismisses the new bridegroom.
[199] a, end of the first paragraph. I forgot to mention the version of Costantino, agreeing closely with Camarda's, in De Rada, Rapsodie d'un poema albanese raccolte nelle colonie del Napoletano, pp 61-64.
[200]. A maid, parting from her lover for three years, divides her ring with him. He forgets, and prepares to marry another woman. She comes to the nuptials, and is not known. She throws the half ring into a cup, drinks, and hands the cup to him. He sees the half ring, and joins it to his own. This is my wife, he says. She delivered me from death. He annuls his marriage, and espouses the right woman. Miklosisch, Ueber die Mundarten der Zigeuner, IV, Märchen u. Lieder, 15th Tale, pp 52-55, at the end of a story of the class referred to at p. 401 f. (Köhler.)
A personage appeared at Magdeburg in 1348 in the disguise of a pilgrim, asked for a cup of wine from the archbishop's table, and, in drinking, dropped into the cup from his mouth the seal ring of the margrave Waldemar, supposed to have been long dead, but whom he confessed or avowed himself to be. Klöden, Diplomatische Geschichte des für falsch erklärten Markgrafen Waldemar, p. 189 f. (Köhler.)
A wife who long pursues her husband, lost to her through spells, drops a ring into his broth at the feast for his second marriage, is recognized, and they are happily reunited: The Tale of the Hoodie, Campbell, West Highland Tales, I, 63-66.
In a pretty Portuguese ballad, which has numerous parallels in other languages, a long-absent husband, after tormenting his wife by telling her that she is a widow, legitimates himself by saying, Where is your half of the ring which we parted? Here is mine: 'Bella Infanta,' Almeida-Garrett, II, 11, 14, Braga, Cantos p. do Archipelago Açoriano, p. 300; 'Dona Infanta,' 'Dona Catherina,' Braga, Romanceiro Geral, pp 3 f, 7.
See, further, for ring stories, Wesselofsky, Neue Beiträge zur Geschichte der Salomonsage, in Archiv für Slavische Philologie, VI, 397 f; Hahn, Neugriechische Märchen, No 25.
The cases in which a simple ring is the means of recognition or confirmation need, of course, not be multiplied.
[200] a, line twenty-four. For Alesha read Alyosha.