The maid’s escape assured, in one way or another, the man calls to her, Your good luck: I would have taught you to weep for the dead (he had been tearing her things in the grave, and her shift, which she had dropped to delay his pursuit), 9. Your body would have been rent into as many bits as your smocks (a bit was found on every grave in the churchyard), 22, 35. I would have torn you into a thousand tatters. I was all but saved, and have had to come so far! Then he warned her never again to long for the dead, 42. I would have taught you to disturb the dead, 41. It was her luck, for she would have been torn into a thousand bits, like her apron. Let this be a warning to you, says Our Lady to the girl, never to mourn so much again for the dead, for he had a hard journey to make, 43. He tore a portion of her gown into a thousand pieces, and laid one on every grave, saying, You were not so much a simpleton to mourn for me as I was not to tear you to pieces, 30. There was on every grave a bit of her gown, from which we may see how it would have fared with her, 31.
Resentment for the disturbance caused by the maid’s excessive grief is expressed also in 6, Since you have wept so much for me, creep into my grave; in 12, she has troubled him by her perpetual weeping, he will take her where he dwells; in 20, Another time do not long for my dead body; in 27, You have mourned for me, now sleep with me; in 32, the maid’s continual weeping is a burden to her lover in his grave. In 40, the remonstrance is affectionate and like (suspiciously like) that of Helgi and of Sir Aage (II, 235).
In some copies the story closes at the grave, 2, 10, 19, 23, 28, 40, 43, 44, 47, 49, 51, 52, 54, 56, 58; many of these, however, are brief and defective. The man lays himself in the grave, which closes, she flies, 23; he descends into the grave and tries to draw her in by her apron, the apron tears, she faints, and is found lying on the ground the next morning, 43; he descends into the grave and tries to draw her after him, she resists, the grave closes, and she remains without, 47; he disappears, she is left alone, 49, 52. She goes into the grave, remains there, and dies, 10; the grave opens, he pushes or drags her in, 54; both disappear in the grave, 56; the horse rushes three times round in a ring, and they are nowhere, 53; she is killed by the man, her flesh torn off, and her bones broken, 51.
The maid finds herself in a strange land, 44, 47; she is among people of different language, 26, 28, 29, 45; nobody knows of the place which she says she came from, 27; she is a long time in getting home, and nobody knows her then, 25; she is years in going home (from two to nine), 20, 22, 28, 46.
The man and woman are a married pair in 2, 3, 23, 44, 45; in 44, the woman has married a second time, contrary to a mutual agreement. 10, 12, 16, 18, 19, have a taint of vampirism, and in 2 a stake is driven through the body of the man after he has returned to his grave, as was done with vampires.
In 31, the maid throws herself from the horse, the man, holding to her gown, tears off a large piece of it, and bits of the gown are found on every grave the next day; so in the Cornish tale, when the maid is pulled from the horse, the man retains a portion of her gown, and a piece is found on his grave. In 27, the maid’s kerchief is found in the man’s grave, and serves to corroborate her story; so in the Suffolk tale, with the handkerchief which the maid had bound round the man’s head. 55, a brief and corrupted copy, compares very well with the Suffolk tale for pointlessness. The man comes on his father’s horse, takes the girl on, and rides with her all round the village. Towards morning he brings the maid back to her chamber, and the horse to the stable, and goes where he came from.
Ballads. Little Russian. 1, 2, Golovatsky, I, 83, No 40; II, 708, No 12. Slovenian. 3, Valjavec, as before, preface, p. IV. Polish. 4, Grudziński, p. 25, ‘Helene,’ Galicia; 5, Max Waldau (G. v. Hauenschild) in Deutsches Museum, 1851, I, 136, No 5, Kreis Ratibor, Oberschlesien; 6, Mickiewicz, ‘Ucieczka’ (Works, Paris, 1880, I, 74), based on a ballad sung in Polish in Lithuania. Bohemian, Moravian. 7, Erben, 1864, p. 471; 8, Bartoš, 1882, p. 150; 9, 10, Sušil, p. 791, p. 111, No 112. Gypsy. 11, Wlisłocki, as before, p. 104, South Hungary. German. 12, Schröer, Ein Ausflug nach Gottschee, Wiener Akademie, Sitzb. d. phil.-hist. Classe, LX, 235.[56]
As I have already said, the ballads seem less original than the tales; that is, to have been made from tales, as ‘The Suffolk Miracle’ was. 5, 7, 10, are of the vulgar sort, like the English piece, 7 having perhaps received literary touches. In none of them does the maid fly and the man pursue; the catastrophe is at the grave.
The lovers have sworn mutual faith, 5, 10; the maid wishes that the man may come back, dead or living, 3, 10, 12; even from hell, 6.
The man has fallen in war, 1, 2, 6, 7, 8, 9, 12.