This is an old ballad modernized by Levertin, its legendary style being rather too fantastical for present-day verse.
16. Betslet är en blomsterrad—the reins, not the bit, forming a festoon of flowers, betsel (bit) is a metonym for tyglar (reins).
20. guldsmidd is here used in two senses—"gold-mounted" and "hammered out of gold."
29. Spelt was the common variety of wheat in early times. It is still grown on poor soils in Germany and Switzerland.
35. huvut, contraction of huvudet, the t representing the definite suffix, not a consonantal change.
45. livsens, archaic for livets.
FLOREZ OCH BLANZEFLOR.
This poem is based on an old medieval ballad which was translated into Swedish as early as 1312 and, together with similar versions of Ivan Lejonriddaren and Hertig Fredrik av Normandie, formed a group of ballads of chivalry called Eufemiavisorna, Queen Euphemia of Norway having caused them to be translated into the Swedish tongue. While the source of "Ivan" appears to have been a French ballad and that of "Henrik" a German one, both belonging to the Arthurian Tales, nothing is said of the origin of "Flores," except that it was "turned into rhyme." The ballad was probably based on the Norse prose saga, "Flores ok Blankiflur," and a French redaction of the same. Critics have traced the romance back to a late Greek source. The Swedish translator is thought to have used the Old Norse prose version. A modern French version, "Floire et Blanceflor" by E. Du Meril (1856) bears close relation to the Old Swedish version. (GEETE and SCHÜCK.)
5. The line gives the title of the poem in Swedish words—blomma och vitblomma.
24. Levertin's poem, as here indicated, merely hints at the full contents of the original ballad.