The river Neva as a local designation is preserved in East Finland, and shows that the version in which it occurs migrated from Ingria northwards. In the course of its migration (which ends in Russian Karelia) this version has become mixed with the West Finnish in multiform ways. The prelude of the East Finnish has attached itself to the West Finnish, notwithstanding the different metre. The trilogy of the latter has made its way into the former, and has spoiled the measure. It is no doubt owing to the influence of the Western version that, in North Ingria and Karelia, the brother, more frequently the lover, has a war-sword, the lover once a sea-ship, or the brother a red boat or war-boat.
Finally it may be noted that in those West Ingrian copies in which the ballads of the maid sold and the maid ransomed are blended the ransomer is a son-in-law, and possesses “a willow castle” (wooden strong-house?), the relation of which to the castle in the West Finnish version is not clear.
If we denote the West Finnish versions by a, the older Esthonian by b, the ballad of the maid sold by her family by c, the status of the East-Finnish versions may be exhibited thus:
In West Ingria, b + c + a.
In North Ingria, b + c + a + a.
In Karelia, b + c + a + a + a.
That is to say, there has been a constantly increasing influence exerted by the West Finnish versions upon the East Finnish Ingrian versions, and reciprocally. This circumstance has caused it to be maintained that the East Finnish versions were derived from the West Finnish, in spite of the difference of the metre.
353 a. F was communicated by Rev. W. Findlay: Findlay MSS, I, 100.
353. H. c. Mrs Bacheller, of Jacobstown, North Cornwall (sister of Mrs Gibbons, from whom 78 H was derived, see IV, 474 b), gave Rev. S. Baring-Gould the following version of the tale, taught her by a Cornish nursery maid, probably the same mentioned at the place last cited.
“A king had three daughters. He gave each a golden ball to play with, which they were never to lose. The youngest lost hers, and was to be hung on the gallows-tree if it were not found by a day named. Gallows ready, all waiting to see the girl hung. She sees her father coming, and cries:@
‘Father, father, have you found my golden ball,
And will you set me free?’