A Little Russian story of Solomon and his wife is given by Dragomanof, Popular Traditions and Tales, 1876, p. 103, translated in Revue des Traditions Populaires, II, 518, by E. Hins. Solomon takes a wife from the family of a heathen tsar. She hates him, and concerts an elopement with a heathen tsarevitch. She pretends to be dead. Solomon burns her hands through and through with a red-hot iron. She utters no sound, is buried in the evening, and immediately disinterred and carried off by her paramour. Solomon goes to the tsarevitch’s house, attended by three armies, a black, a white, and a red (which are, of course, kept out of sight), and furnished with three pipes. The tsarevitch has a gallows set up, and Solomon is taken out to be hanged. He obtains liberty first to play on his pipes. The sound of the first brings the white army, that of the second the red, that of the third the black. The tsarevitch is hanged, the tsaritsa dragged at a horse’s tail.
A like story is narrated in German in a passage of about two hundred and fifty verses, which is appended to the Wit-Combat, or Dialogue, of Solomon and Morolf; and again, with much interpolation and repetition, in a later strophic poem of more than four thousand lines. Both pieces are extant in manuscripts and print of the fifteenth century, but their original is considerably earlier.
In the briefer and earlier of the two German versions, Solomon’s wife has bestowed her love on a nameless heathen king, and wishes to escape to him, but cannot bring this about. She feigns to be sick, and the heathen (with whom she has been in correspondence) sends two minstrels to her, who pretend to be able to cure sick folk with their music. They obtain admission to the queen, give her an herb which throws her into a death-like sleep, and carry her off to their master. Morolf, at King Solomon’s entreaty, sets forth to find the queen, and, after traversing many strange lands, succeeds. Solomon, under his guidance and advice, and properly supported by an armed force, goes to the castle where the queen is living; leaves his men in an adjoining wood, under command to come to him when they hear his horn blow; and, disguised as a pilgrim, begs food at the castle. His wife knows him the moment she lays eyes on him, and tells the heathen that it is Solomon. The heathen, overjoyed, says to Solomon, If I were in your hands, what should be my death? Would God it were so! answers the king. I would take you to the biggest wood, let you choose your tree, and hang you. So shall it be, says the heathen, calls his people, takes Solomon to the wood, and bids him choose his tree. I shall not be long about that, says Solomon; but, seeing that I am of kingly strain, grant me, as a boon, to blow my horn three times. The queen objects; the heathen says, Blow away. At the third blast Morolf arrives with Solomon’s men. The heathen and all his people are slain; the queen is taken back to Jewry, and put to death by opening her veins in a bath.[8]
The longer poem has several additional incidents which recur in our ballad, and others which link it with other forms of the story. Salme, Solomon’s wife, is daughter of an Indian king (Cyprian, cf. the third Russian prose tale), and has been stolen from her father by Solomon. Fore, a heathen king, in turn steals Salme from the king of Jerusalem. Morolf is not the sharp-witted boor of the other piece, but Solomon’s brother. When Solomon goes to Fore’s castle, he is kindly received by that king’s sister, and she remains his fast friend throughout. He tells her that he is a sinful man, upon whom has been imposed a penance of perpetual pilgrimage. Brought before the queen, Solomon tries to make Salme come back to him. She lets him know that she loves Fore three times as well as him, and to Fore will she stick. Solomon is put into some side room. Fore comes home and sits down to table with Salme, and she informs him that Solomon is in his power. The army consists of three divisions, a black, a white, and a wan (bleich), nearly as in the Little Russian tale. The reason which Solomon alleges for wishing to blow his horn is to give notice to St Michael and the angels to come and take his soul in charge. Fore is hanged. Salme is disposed of as before, but not until after she has eloped with another king. Solomon marries Fore’s sister after Salme’s death.[9]
The adventure of Solomon will be recognized in what is recounted in Portuguese genealogies of the fourteenth century concerning King Ramiro Second of Leon († 950).[10] King Ramiro, smitten with passion for a beautiful Moorish lady, got himself invited to the castle of her brother Alboazar, at Gaya, and plumply asked for her. He would make her a Christian and marry her. Alboazar replied that Ramiro had a wife and children already. Ramiro could not deny this, but his queen was, it seems, conveniently near of kin to him, and Holy Church would allow a separation. The Moor swore that he never would give his sister to Ramiro. Ramiro, under cover of a darkness produced by an astrologer in his service, carried her off to Leon and had her baptized with the name Artiga. Alboazar, in revenge, availed himself of a favorable opportunity to lay hands on Aldora, Ramiro’s queen, and took her to his castle of Gaya. Ramiro, with five galleys crowded with his vassals, ran in at San João de Foz, near Gaya. He had taken the precaution to cover his galleys with green cloth, and he laid them under the boughs of trees with which the place was covered, so that they were not to be seen. Having landed his men, he left them under the command of his son, D. Ordonho, with directions that they should keep well hidden and not stir from the spot till they should hear his horn, but then come with all speed, and himself putting on mean clothes (panos de tacanho, de veleto) over sword, mail, and horn, went and lay down at a spring near the castle. One of the queen’s women came out to fetch water for her mistress. Ramiro, feigning to be unable to rise, asked her for a drink, which she offered him. He put into his mouth the half of a ring which he had divided with his queen, and dropped it into the vessel. The queen saw the half-ring and knew it, and elicited from her maid that she had met a sick beggar, who had asked for a drink. The man was sent for. ‘What brings you here, King Ramiro?’ demanded the queen. ‘Love for you,’ said he. ‘No love for me; you care more for Artiga,’ she retorted. Ramiro was put into a back room, and the door was locked. Presently Alboazar came into the queen’s chamber. The queen said to him, What would you do to Ramiro if you had him here? Put him to death cruelly (What he would do to me, kill him), responded the Moor. He is locked up in that room, said the queen, and you can proceed at your will.
Ramiro heard all this, and saw that he had never had more need to use his wits. He called in a loud voice to Alboazar: I wronged you by carrying off your sister. I confessed my sin to my priest, and he required of me as penance to go to you in this vile garb, and put myself in your power; and if you wished to take my life, I was to submit to death in a shameful place, and the fact and cause of my death were to be proclaimed by a horn to all your people. Now I have to ask that you would collect your sons, your daughters, your kinsfolk, and the people of this town, in a cattle-yard (curral), put me up high, and let me blow this horn that I wear, until breath and life fail. So you will have your revenge, and I shall save my soul. Alboazar began to feel compassion for Ramiro. Aldora exclaimed at his weakness and folly. Ramiro, she said, was revengeful and cunning, and sparing him was rushing into destruction; whereby the Moor was brought to say, You know that if you had me in your hands, I should not escape. I will do what you ask, for the salvation of your soul. So Alboazar took Ramiro to the yard, which had high walls and but one gate, and the queen, her dames and damsels, the Moor’s sons and kinsfolk, and the town’s people, were there. Ramiro was put on a pillar, and told to blow till life left his body; and he blew with all his might. D. Ordonho came with the king’s vassals and beset the gate. Ramiro drew his sword and split Alboazar’s head. The queen and her ladies were spared, but every other creature in the yard was slain, including four sons and three daughters of Alboazar, and no stone was left standing in Gaya. Ramiro put the queen and her women aboard the galleys. Aldora was found weeping. Ramiro asked the cause. Because you have killed the Moor, a better man than yourself, was her answer. This was thought too much to be borne. The queen was tied to a millstone and thrown into the sea. Ramiro married Artiga.[11]
There is a poem on this theme by João Vaz (Lisbon, 1630, reprinted by Braga, 1868), which points to a different source than the genealogies. Ramiro takes the sister of King Almanzor captive in war, and becomes enamored of her, in consequence of which Gaya, Ramiro’s wife, elopes with Almanzor. Gaya receives Ramiro with feigned kindness when he comes to the castle, then betrays him (as in the French romance).[12]
Almeida-Garrett composed a little romance out of the story as here given, with the name Zahara for Alboazar’s sister, and Gaia for Ramiro’s wife, and making Ramiro cut off Gaia’s head before he throws her into the water: ‘Miragaia,’ Romanceiro, I, 181, ed. 1863. He informs us that he has interwoven in his poem some verses from popular tradition. A ballad of Ramiro, or at least some remnant of one, appears still to be in existence. Madame de Vasconcellos (1880) had heard two lines of it.
Li Bastars de Buillon, a romance of the fourteenth century, repeats the chief incidents of the foregoing accounts, agreeing in details sometimes with one, sometimes with another.[13] Ludie, daughter of the emir of Orbrie, is to marry Corsabrin, king of Mont Oscur. The Bastard of Bouillon, who has heard of the beauty of the Saracen princess, conceives a sudden fancy for her. He besieges and takes the city of Orbrie, kills the emir, and compels Ludie to submit to baptism and to marriage with himself. She takes advantage of an absence of the Bastard to escape to Corsabrin, who makes her his queen. The Bastard, bent on vengeance, sails to Mont Oscur, and in the adjacent woods lights on a charcoal-man who is going to the castle in the way of his business. He kills the charcoal-man and puts on his clothes, and in this habit, with a well-blackened face, has no difficulty in obtaining entrance to the residence of Corsabrin. His men he has left in the wood under command of his counsellor and lieutenant, Hugh. Corsabrin is hawking, but the Bastard falls in with Ludie, who affects to be glad of his coming, and offers to go off with him if he will forgive her and do her no harm. A bath would seem to be in order. Ludie has one prepared for the Bastard, and while he is engaged in taking it, sends for Corsabrin, who comes in upon the young Frank with sixty men. Ludie enjoins her rightful husband to show no mercy. The Saracen will not do so infamous a thing as to put his enemy to death in a bath, but assures his wife that the Bastard shall die à guise de martir. A rich dress is furnished the Bastard, and Corsabrin then says, On your oath, now, what death should I die, were I in your power? Sire, says the Bastard, why should I dissemble? I promise you, I would take you to a wood, and I would hang you to the highest tree I could find. By Mahound! says the king, so will I do with you. The Bastard is taken to a wood, with a rope round his neck. Corsabrin’s people look out the highest tree. The Bastard is made to go up, higher and higher, the hangman drawing the rope all too tight the while, till the king says, Now. At the last moment the Bastard calls out to Corsabrin that he is a knight of high birth, and ought not to die like a rogue, but as a man of mark dies among the Franks. And how is that? asks the Saracen. They give him a horn, and he blows four or five times to summon the angels to come for his soul. Then he says a prayer. Then they strangle him or behead him. A horn is sent up to the Bastard, and he blows lustily. Hugh hears, and rides in hot haste to the call. The Bastard makes the most of his grace; his prayer is very long. He sees that a fight is going on below, and knocks the hangman dead from the tree with his fist, then comes down from the tree and joins in the fray. Hugh runs Corsabrin through with a lance, Ludie is taken captive, and every other living being in the castle is slain. Hugh begs as a reward for his services that he may have the disposal of Ludie. The Bastard accords the boon, with a recommendation to mercy: ‘arse fu li royne c’on appella Ludie.’
The escaping to a lover by taking a drug which causes apparent death, and the test of molten lead or gold, in the German poems, and in Cligès, 6000 ff., are found in ‘The Gay Goshawk,’ No 96, II, 355 ff. The test is also employed in one form of the Russian prose narratives: Vesselofsky, in the Slavic Archiv, VI, 409.