"Son amant l'habille,
Tout en or et argent";
and the rustic in a song from Poitou talks of his faucille d'or, just as a variant of Hugh of Lincoln introduces gold chairs and tables. Again, when the lover, in a ballad common to France and to Scotland, cuts the winding-sheet from about his living bride—"il tira ses ciseaux d'or fin." If the horses of the Klephts in Romaic ballads are gold shod, the steed in Willie's Lady is no less splendidly accoutred,—
"Silver shod before,
And gowden shod behind."
Readers of Homer, and of the Chanson de Roland, must have observed the same primitive luxury of gold in these early epics, in Homer reflecting perhaps the radiance of the actual "golden Mycenae."
Next as to talking-birds. These are not so common as in Märchen, but still are very general, and cause no surprise to their human listeners. The omniscient popinjay, who "up and spoke" in the Border minstrelsy, is of the same family of birds as those that, according to Talvj, pervade Servian song; as the τριὰ πουλακιά which introduce the story in the Romaic ballads; as the wise birds whose speech is still understood by exceptionally gifted Zulus; as the wicked dove that whispers temptation in the sweet French folk-song; as the "bird that came out of a bush, on water for to dine," in the Water o' Wearies Well.
In the matter of identity of plot and incident in the ballads of various lands, it is to be regretted that no such comparative tables exist as Von Hahn tried, not very exhaustively, to make of the "story-roots" of Märchen. Such tables might be compiled from the learned notes and introductions of Prof. Child to his English and Scottish Popular Ballads (1898). A common plot is the story of the faithful leman, whose lord brings home "a braw new bride," and who recovers his affection at the eleventh hour. In Scotland this is the ballad of Lord Thomas and Fair Annie; in Danish it is Skiaen Anna. It occurs twice in M. Fauriel's collection of Romaic songs. Again, there is the familiar ballad about a girl who pretends to be dead, that she may be borne on a bier to meet her lover. This occurs not only in Scotland, but in the popular songs of Provence (collected by Damase Arbaud) and in those of Metz (Puymaigre), and in both countries an incongruous sequel tells how the lover tried to murder his bride, and how she was too cunning, and drowned him. Another familiar feature is the bush and briar, or the two rose trees, which meet and plait over the graves of unhappy lovers, so that all passers-by see them, and say in the Provençal,—
"Diou ague l'amo
Des paures amourous."