Prevailing traits: 1. Lilla; in some copies from East Livonia, Roosi. 2. Little room; quite as often prison-tower. 3. The father has horses, the mother cows, the brother swords, as in the West Finnish versions. The independency of the Esthonian ballad is exhibited in the sister’s three rings. It must, as far as I can at present see, have been borrowed directly from the Swedish, not through the medium of the Finnish. The lover has always three ships, and it is often wished that these ships may sail well in storm and in winter. The maledictions occur regularly, as in the example cited. There are some divergences as to the items of property, mostly occasioned by the older Esthonian version: thus, the father has sometimes oxen or corn-lofts, the brother horses, the sister brooches.
III. The older Esthonian versions, disseminated in Esthonia and Livonia, and also among the orthodox Esthonians beyond Pskov. These are in the old eight-syllable measure of the runes (and of Kalevala). More than a hundred copies have been obtained.
a. Best preserved and of most frequent occurrence in the island of Ösel. Twenty copies. Specimen from J. Hurt’s manuscript collections. Anne goes into the cow-house and soils her cap. She proceeds to the sea-beach to wash her cap. Ships come from Russia, from Courland. Anne is made captive. She weeps, and begs that the ship may be stopped; she wishes to take a look homewards. Her father has three oxen, one of which has silver horns, another copper, the third golden, but he will give none of them for her. Her mother has three cows, with silver, copper, golden udders; her brother, three horses, with the same variety of manes; her sister, three sheep, with wool of the three sorts; a neighbor’s son, three lofts full of wheat, rye, barley. She wishes that the oxen may die in ploughing-time, the cows in milk-time, the horses at wooing-time, the sheep at wool-time; but may the corn-lofts of the neighbor’s son grow fuller in the direst famine-time.
Prevailing traits: 1. The maid’s name is Anne. 2. The pirates are Russians (10 times), Poles (6), Courlanders (2), Swedes (1), Germans (1), English (1). 3. The father has commonly oxen; the mother, cows always; the brother, almost always horses; the sister, sheep, six times, oftener than anything else; the lover, ordinarily corn-lofts. 4. The cursing occurs ten times. There are in a few cases exchanges of the sorts of property (thus, the father has corn-lofts, the sister has brooches, each four times), and in two instances the lover is omitted. The ballad has perhaps been affected by another (see II, 347 f.) in which a girl receives information that she has been sold by her relations: by her father for a pair of oxen (25 cases) or for a horse (18), by her mother for a cow, by her brother for a horse (24) or for a pair of oxen (14), by her sister for a brooch; and she curses all that they have got by the sale.
b. Less perfect and not so well preserved on the Esthonian mainland. About 100 copies, more or fewer. Specimens, Neus, p. 109, No 34, Hurt, Vana Kannel, I, 166, No 103, II, 310, No 442.
Prevailing traits: 1. The name of the maid, Anne, and the introduction linked to it, are often dropped, especially in the southeast of the Esthonian district, and a passage about a young conscript who wishes to be bought off from serving is substituted. The maid, whose brothers have hidden away, is pressed instead of them, and sent into service. As she is driven by the house of her parents in the military wagon she entreats her guards not to make sail! 2. The kidnapper is most frequently a Russian, then Pole, Swede, less commonly German, Courlander. In the northeast of the Esthonian district, on the border of Ingria, Karelian, four times. 3. The father often keeps the oxen, but almost as often has horses; the brother, in these last cases, has seldom oxen, generally horses as well as the father. The alteration is in part owing to the same material occasion as in the West Finnish versions; sometimes an influence from the ballad of the maiden who has been sold by her relatives may be suspected (in which ballad it is not easy to say whether the oxen belong originally to father or brother). Frequently the father has corn-lofts, the lover, to whom these would belong, having dropped out. The mother has almost always cows; in the northeast, on the Ingrian border, three times, aprons. The brother has generally horses, five times oxen, with other individual variations. The sister has preserved the sheep only four times; eight times she has brooches, and in one of these cases the ballad of the maid sold by her relatives is blended with ours, while in the remainder the influence of that ballad is observable. In six cases she has rings, perhaps under the influence of the later Esthonian versions. In the southeast she has chests seven times, and in most of these cases the lover has the rings. Other variations occur from one to four times. The lover has his corn-lofts nine times. Eight times he has horses, and in half of these instances he has exchanged with the brother, or both have horses. Twice he has ships, through the influence of the later Esthonian versions; or rings, in which cases the father ordinarily has the corn-lofts. 4. The imprecation in the conclusion is but rarely preserved.
IV. The East Finnish versions. Diffused in Ingria, East Finland, and Russian Karelia. In the old rune-measure, about forty copies. Specimen, Ahlqvist’s collection, from East Finland, No 351: see J. K., p. 11.
Prevailing traits: 1. The maid is in a boat on the Neva. 2. The kidnapper is a Russian. 3. The father has a horse, the mother a cow, the brother a horse, the sister a sheep (each with an epithet). 4. The imprecation is almost without exception preserved. This version arose from a blending of the West Finnish, I, the older Esthonian, III, and the ballad of the maid sold by her relatives. This latter occurs in West Ingria in the following shape: The maid gets tidings that she has been sold. The father has received for her a gold-horse (may it founder when on the way to earn gold!), the mother a portly cow (may it spill its milk on the ground!), the brother a war-horse (may the horse founder on the war-path!), the sister a bluish sheep (may wolf and bear rend it!). In some copies the father or the brother has oxen (may they fall dead in ploughing!), as in the Esthonian ballad, from which the Ingrian is borrowed. The sister’s sheep instead of brooch shows perhaps the influence of the older Esthonian ballad of the maid begging to be ransomed, or it may be an innovation.
The ballad of the maid sold by her family occurs in West Ingria independently, and also as an introduction to the other, and has been the occasion for the changes in the possessions of the relatives. North of St Petersburg the combination is not found, though it has left its traces in the course of the spreading of the ballad from Narva to St Petersburg.
The maid’s sitting in a boat may come as well from the older Esthonian as from the West Finnish version, although it is more common in the latter for her to be sitting in the “little room.” The Russian as the kidnapper is a constant feature in the older Esthonian version, but occurs also three times in the West Finnish (once it is the red-headed Dane, in the copy in which the oxen are preserved). Besides Russian, the kidnapper is once called Karelian in West Ingria, often in East Finland, and this denomination also occurs in Northeast Esthonia. The influence of the older Esthonian versions is shown again in some copies preserved in West Ingria which are not mixed up with the ballad of the maid that has been sold; the mother having three aprons in two instances, as in some Northeast Esthonian copies.