There are many other ballads in which a girl, for one reason or another, feigns death. In 'Les trois capitaines,' or 'La jolie fille de la Garde,' etc., Arbaud, I, 143, Decombe, Ch. p. d'Ille-et-Vilaine, p. 150, No 51, Champfleury, Ch. p. des Provinces, p. 95, Bujeaud, II, 174, 'La Bohème Galante,' ed. 1866, p. 71 f, Chansons du Valois, p. 19, IX, Puymaigre, Vieux Auteurs, II, 478, E. Legrand, Romania, X, 369, No 6, the object is to save her honor;[160] so in Marcoaldi, p. 162, No 10, Ferraro, C. p. monferrini, p. 41, No 31. The well-disposed hostess of an inn administers a sleeping-draught, in Arbaud's ballad and in Decombe's. The object is to avoid becoming a king's mistress, in 'Kvindelist,' Grundtvig, IV, 394, No 235, 'Hertig Hillebrand och hans Syster,' Arwidsson, I, 380 No 61; in a Bohemian ballad, to avoid marrying a Turk, 'Oklamaný Turek,' 'The Turk duped,' Ćelakovský, III, 11 (translated in Bowring's Cheskian Anthology, p. 129) Erben, p. 485, etc., etc.; to move a lover who is on the point of deserting, Hoffmann, Niederländische Volkslieder, p. 61, No 15, Willems, No 60, Uhland, No 97 B.
In 'Willie's Lyke-Wake,' No 25, I, 247, a man feigns death in order to capture a coy maid, or a maid refused him by her parents.
Birds are not seldom employed as posts in ballads: see 'Sweet William,' Motherwell's Minstrelsy, p. 307, Milá, Romancerillo, No 258; Hartung, Romanceiro, I, 193 (dove). A falcon carries a letter, in Afzelius, III, 116, No 87, and Milá, No 258 K, and Marko Kraljevitch sends a letter by a falcon from his prison, Karadshitch, II, 383. For a love-message of a general sort, not involving business, the nightingale is usually and rightly selected. On the other hand, a nightingale first orders a ring of a goldsmith, and afterwards delivers it to a lady, in Uhland, No 15.[161] In this ballad the goshawk is endowed with the nightingale's voice. The substitution of a parrot in G, a bird that we all know can talk, testifies to the advances made by reason among the humblest in the later generations.[162] A parrot, says Buchan, "is by far a more likely messenger to carry a love-letter or deliver a verbal message," II, 341. The parrot goes well with the heroine swooning on a sofa (stanza 33) and the step-dame sitting on the sofa's end (stanza 36).
Thieves drop three drops of wax on the breast of a servant-girl who is feigning sleep, and she shows no sign of feeling, in a Catalan ballad, Milá, Romancerillo, p. 104, No 114, vv 13-16, Observaciones, p. 147, No 43, Briz, I, 147.[163]
Translated by Grundtvig, Engelske og skotske Folkeviser, No 32, after E, C, G. After D by Talvj, Versuch, u. s. w., p. 560; Schubart, p. 57; Doenniges, p. 19; Gerhard, p. 37; Loève-Veimars, p. 264. By Knortz, Lieder Alt-Englands, No 2, after C; by Rosa Warrens, Schottische Volkslieder, No 38, after C and E, sometimes following Aytoun, I, 178.
A
Jamieson-Brown MS., No 6, pt 15.
1 'O well's me o my gay goss-hawk,
That he can speak and flee;
He'll carry a letter to my love,
Bring back another to me.'
2 'O how can I your true-love ken,
Or how can I her know?
Whan frae her mouth I never heard couth,
Nor wi my eyes her saw.'
3 'O well sal ye my true-love ken,
As soon as you her see;
For, of a' the flowrs in fair Englan,
The fairest flowr is she.