The Norwegian ballad is most like, or least unlike, the English. Maalfrí, a king's only daughter, is married to Karl, king of England. It was spaed to her when she was yet a maid that she should die of her twelfth lying in; she has already born eleven children. The king purposing to leave her for a time, she reminds him of the prophecy. He defies spaewives and goes, but after three days dreams that Maalfrí's cloak is cut in two, that her hair is cut to bits, etc.; and this sends him home, when he learns that two sons have been cut from her side. He throws himself on his sword. Maalfrí, Malfred, is, in the other Norse ballads, also an only daughter, and dies in her twelfth child-birth, in all but Icelandic B, C, D, where the first is fatal to her. There are no other important diversities, and the resemblances in the details of the Norse and the English ballads are these two: the wife being fated to die of her first child in Icelandic B, C, D, and the Cæsarean operation in the Norwegian versions.
It is barely worth mentioning that there is also a German ballad, in which a maid (only eleven years old in most of the versions) begs her mother not to give her to a husband, because she will not live more than a year if married, and dies accordingly in child-birth: 'Hans Markgraf,' "Bothe, Frühlings-Almanach, 1806, p. 132," reprinted in Büsching und von der Hagen's Volkslieder, p. 30, Erlach, II, 136, Mittler, No 133; "Alle bei Gott die sich lieben," Wunderhorn, 1808, II, 250, Erlach, IV, 127, Mittler, No 128; Hoffmann und Richter, Schlesische Volkslieder, p. 12, No 5, Mittler, No 132. To these may be added 'Der Graf und die Bauerntochter,' Ditfurth, II, 8, No 9; 'Der Mutter Fluch,' Meinert, p. 246. In these last it is the mother who objects to the marriage, on account of her daughter's extreme youth.[147]
A
Lovely Jenny's Garland, three copies, as early as 1775, but without place or date.
1 When we were silly sisters seven,
sisters were so fair,
Five of us were brave knights' wives,
and died in childbed lair.
2 Up then spake Fair Mary,
marry woud she nane;
If ever she came in man's bed,
the same gate wad she gang.
3 'Make no vows, Fair Mary,
for fear they broken be;
Here's been the Knight of Wallington,
asking good will of thee.'
4 'If here's been the knight, mother,
asking good will of me,
Within three quarters of a year
you may come bury me.'
5 When she came to Wallington,
and into Wallington hall,
There she spy'd her mother dear,
walking about the wall.