Sir Peter awakes, but he wakes not ere
The flame is playing in the young bride's hair.
Sir Peter springs from his bed, oer late;
He saw Little Kersti go out through the gate.
'Ah, dear Little Kersti, now help thou me!
Another time shall I help thee.'
And it was Little Kersti, her laugh he heard:
'I wot how well you keep your word.'[117]
A Southern ballad has something of the outline of the English and Norse, and sounds like a thin echo of them. A. Poésies populaires de la France, MS., III, fol. 158, Burgundy. B. Buchon, Noëls et Chants p. de la Franche-Comté, p. 90, No 31, 'J'ai fait un rêve.' C. Beaurepaire, La Poésie p. en Normandie, p. 50. D. Ampère, Instructions, p. 34, Bretagne. E. Guillon, Chansons p. de l'Ain, p. 161, 'Chante, rossignolet.' F. Arbaud, Chants p. de la Provence, II, 139, 'Lou premier Jour de Mai.' G. Ferraro, Canti p. monferrini, p. 8, No 7, 'Il primo amore.'
A youth is obliged by his father to give up his love for a bride who is less beautiful but richer. He has a dream that his love is dead, and carries her a rose, B, D. He invites her to the wedding: she will not come to the ceremony, but to the dance. She has three gowns made for the occasion, the third embroidered with gold, or of gold stuff. She falls dead while dancing: she falls on the right, he on the left. In G, after his love has died, the bridegroom draws his sword and kills himself. C and one copy of D have the phenomenon of the sympathetic plants, as in English A, B, E, F, G.
E 3 is a sort of commonplace when unequal matches are in question. So in a fragment in Herd's manuscripts, I, 55, II, 187:
'I hae nae houses, I hae nae lands,
I hae nae gowd or fee, Sir;
I am oer low to be your bryde,
Your loon I'll never be, Sir.'
And again Motherwell's MS., p. 37. It is Lady Grey's answer to King Edward in the Third Part of Henry VI, III, 2:
'I know I am too mean to be your queen,
And yet too good to be your concubine.'