The German ballad is: A. 'Graf Hans von Holstein und seine Schwester Annchristine,' Müllenhoff, p. 492, No 48. B. 'Der grobe Bruder,' Wunderhorn, II, 272, 1808, Birlinger und Crecelius, II, 24. C. 'Der grausame Bruder,' Parisius, p. 38, No 12, A. D. 'Das Lied vom Pfalzgrafen,' Düntzer und Herder, Briefe Goethe's an Herder, I, 154. E. 'Der grausame Bruder,' Erk, Liederhort, p. 153, No 45. F. 'Christinchen,' Pröhle, p. 4, No 2. G. Wunderhorn, Birlinger und Crecelius, II, 247, No 4. H. Parisius, No 12, C. I. Reifferscheid, p. 107. J. 'Der böse Bruder,' Zuccalmaglio, p. 185, No 89. K. 'Der Pfalzgraf vom Rhein,' Wunderhorn, I, 259, 1806, Birlinger und Crecelius, II, 24. L. 'Der grausame Bruder,' Hoffmann und Richter, Schlesische Volkslieder, p. 49, No 27. M. Parisius, No 12, B. A version in broadside style, Erlach, II, 585, Doenniges, p. 217; compounded copies, Simrock, No 16, Scherer, Jungbrunnen, No 35, A.
According to the Scandinavian story, a king is informed by his queen, her inexorable enemy, that Kirstin, his sister, has just borne a child. The king sends for Kirstin, who is at some distance, to come to him immediately. She is obliged to make the journey on horseback. Upon her arrival the king puts her to a variety of tests, among these a long dance. Kirstin comes off so well that her brother says the queen has belied her. The queen then bares Kirstin's breast and makes milk flow from it. The king hereupon sends for heavy whips, and flogs his sister to the point of death. In the Icelandic and Färöe versions Kirstin dies of the dance, in her brother's arms. In the Swedish versions and in Danish I the king is Kirstin's father, not her brother. The Norwegian versions and Swedish F, H have a false conclusion: Kirstin survives, and is united to her lover. In Danish A the king had, before he learned the state of things, promised his sister to the son of the King of England, and in Danish F, H, I, Swedish F, and the Färöe ballad, Kirstin's lover is an English prince, who, in Danish H, comes to claim his mistress, and, finding her dead, kills the king. In Swedish A Kirstin dances with four, dances with five, dances with all the men of the court, and in Swedish C, H she tires out successively all the courtiers, the king, and the queen.
A, far the best preserved of the German versions, makes a hunter ask a count for his sister Annchristine. Being refused, as an unequal match, he tells the count that his sister, for all her nobility, has borne a child. The count maintains Annchristine to be a maid. The hunter says, Send for her, and see. The young lady is required to come on horseback. When her brother sees her approaching, with her long hair flowing, his confidence is strengthened. The hunter says, Make her dance. She dances seven hours, and her brother finds reason to continue of the same mind as before. The hunter says, Let us tighten her lacing, and, when that is done, milk springs from her breasts. Her brother gives her the choice between whipping and the sword. She chooses the former. He beats her till liver and lungs spring from her body. She then calls on him to stop; Prince Frederick of England is his brother-in-law. The count is much troubled, and promises everything if she will live. But Annchristine dies, and presently Prince Frederick appears. He has heard of what the count has done, cuts him to bits, and gives him to the crows.
In the other German versions the informant is generally of low rank, and sometimes professes to be father of the child. In B, C, G, H, K he is a kitchey-boy, a personage who plays no insignificant part in romantic story. The coming on horseback is wanting. The long dance is found in B-F. The father of the child is always the English King, who runs the brother through with his sword, B, D, E, G, K, L, or otherwise gives him his due.
The slight resemblance and the great difference of the Scottish story are apparent. Fair Janet has to go a certain distance on horseback, at a time when she is peculiarly ill fitted to do so, like the hapless Kirstin of the Scandinavian ballads and the German A, and she dies from dancing in her weak condition, as the lady does in the Icelandic and Färöe ballad. But both the ride and the dance are incidental to her forced marriage, and neither the ride nor the dance is employed as a test, as the dance always is in the other ballad, and as the ride is expressly devised to be in German A 6. The Scottish Janet is not constrained to dance, nor does she dance down all the men in the room. She declines every invitation except Willie's, and this, in some cases, she (very naturally and touchingly) encourages or incites; and her vital powers give way after three turns. All the unspeakably ferocious features of the Norse and German ballads are wanting, and the bound which divides the pathetic from the horrible is never passed.
A Breton ballad, 'Ar C'homt Gwillou,' 'Prinses ar Gwillou,' 'Le Comte Guillou,' 'La Princesse Le Guillou,' Luzel, II, 6-15, in three versions, has the probation by dancing. A count or prince, returning to his mistress after a considerable absence, happens to hear a shepherdess singing a song, of which he himself is unfortunately the subject. The lady has had a child. Fearing to encounter her injured lover, she tries to pass off a younger sister for herself, but, as may be imagined, this desperate artifice does not succeed. She is told what is said of her, and hopes she may melt like butter if ever she had daughter or son. The count calls out, Play up, musicians, that we may see how this damsel will step out. The young woman pleads that she is suffering from fever, and cannot dance just now, but the count strikes her on the breast so that milk spurts on her gown, A. He kills her.[86]
There is also a Magyar ballad, in which a jealous or offended lover makes his mistress dance till her boots are full of blood, as Kjersti's are in Norwegian A, B: 'Darvas Kis Clement,' Aigner, p. 110.
One or two correspondences with the Scandinavian-German ballad will require to be noted under '[Lady Maisry],' which immediately follows.
A is translated by Knortz, Schottische Balladen, No 7; F by Gerhard, p. 97; a combination of A, C and others by Grundtvig, No 39.