[73] And John Armstrang her eldest brother, C 30: so the Scottish king was right when he weened Johnie was a king as well as he.
[74] "The tradition which commonly accompanies this tale," says Jamieson, Popular Ballads, II, 83, "says that he was aware of his bride's being the sister of his mistress, and that he had courted her, not with a view of retaining her as his wife, but of securing from her father a portion for Lady Jane, whom he intended to marry:" a canny project adopted into the degenerate and interpolated J (st. 53), but rather too sharp practice for an old ballad.
[75] The boys are all dressed in scarlet red in Danish E 24, F 27, H 21; so in English E 6, but in J 23 in black.
And the young bride throws down a half gold-ring,
Fair Annie she throws down the other,
And a pair of loving sisters were they,
And the rings they ran together.
Swedish B 32.
[77] Vorige span, sts 14,15, for which Hoffmann reads voorgespan, meaning a fore-span. A span of horses is as absurd here as possible, but is adopted in the German version, and made to point a gibe at the king. It would seem that the Dutch voorspan, brooch or clasp, German spange (see Hexham's Dictionary, 1658), must have been for some time obsolete. In Richthofen's Altfriesisches Wörterbuch we find simply span, spon: "verstanden ist darunter ein goldener Schmuck den die friesischen Weiber vor der Brust trugen." Stanza 15 is interpreted accordingly.
[78] "Voorgespan" again.
[79] Roquefort, Poésies de Marie de France, I, 138. There is a highly felicitous old English translation, unfortunately somewhat defective: Weber, Metrical Romances, I, 357, Ellis's Specimens, III, 282, what is missing being supplied in each case from the French.
[80] For this idea see Grimm's Rechtsalterthümer, p. 456 of the 2d ed., and Deutsche Sagen, 515, 534, 571; the English romance of Octavian, Weber, III, 162, vv 127-132, the French, in Conybeare's abridgment, p. 3, reprint of the Aungervyle Society, p. 23; the volksbuch Kaiser Octavianus, Simrock, II, 244; the Spanish ballad 'Espinelo,' Duran, I, 177, No 323, and again a 16th century ballad of Timoneda, II, 392, No 1346. This last may be the foundation of a broadside in the Pepys collection, I, 40, No 18: "The Lamenting Lady, who, for wrongs done by her to a poor woman for having two children at one burthen, was by the hand of God most strangely punished by sending her as many children at one birth as there are days in the year." But we have the same miracle in Grimm's Deutsche Sagen, No 578. Further, Grundtvig, V, 386, 'Grevens Datter af Vendel,' No 258, E 1; Li Reali di Francia, l. II, c. 42, p 180 of the edition of Venice, 1821. (Grundtvig.)