ler, I, 62, No 34. A maid begs that she may be left to herself for a year, but her father says it is time for her to be married. She goes to her chamber, weeps and wrings her hands. The merman comes and asks, Where is my bride? They tell him that she is in her chamber, weeping and wringing her hands. The merman asks her the reason, and she answers, They all say that you are the merwoman's son. He says he will build her a bridge of pure silver and gold, and have her driven over it with thirty carriages and forty horses; but ere she has half passed the bridge it goes down to the bottom. She is seven years below, has seven sons in as many years, and is going with the eighth. She implores her husband to permit her to go to church in the upper world, and he consents, with the proviso that she shall not stay for the benediction. At church she sees her brother and sister, who receive her kindly. She tells them that she cannot stay till the benediction;[1] they beg her to come home to dine with them. She does wait till the benediction; the merman rushes frantically about. As she leaves the church and is saying good-by to her sister, she meets the merman, who snatches the youngest child from her (she appears to have all seven with her), tears it in pieces, strangles the rest, scatters their limbs on the road, and hangs himself, asking, Does not your heart grieve for your children? She answers, I grieve for none but the youngest.[2]
A Slovenian ballad has the story with modifications, Achacel and Korytko, Slovénşke Péşmi krajnskiga Naróda, I, 30,[3] 'Povodnji mósh;' given in abstract by Haupt and Schmaler, I, 339, note to No. 34. Mizika goes to a dance, in spite of her mother's forbidding. Her mother, in a rage, wishes that the merman may fetch her. A young man who dances with her whirls her round so furiously that she complains, but he becomes still more violent. Mizika sees how it is, and exclaims, The merman has come for me! The merman flies out of the window with her, and plunges into the water. She bears a son, and asks leave to pay a visit to her mother; and this is allowed on conditions, one of which is that she shall not expose herself to a benediction. She does not conform, and the merman comes and says that her son is crying for her. She refuses to go with him, and he tears the boy in two, that each may have a half.
Two or three of the minuter correspondences between the Scottish and the Norse or German ballads, which have not been referred to, may be indicated in conclusion. The hill-man, in several Norwegian copies, as B, M, carries off the lady on horseback, and so Hastings in C. In A 34–39, the returned sister, being invited to dine, cannot eat a bit or drink a drop. So, in 'The Maid and the Dwarf-King,' Swedish G 15, 16, they set before Agnes dishes four and five, dishes eight and nine, but she can take nothing:
Young Akin, in A 43, is found in the wood, "tearing his yellow hair." The merman has golden hair in Danish A 16, Swedish D 2, 19, Norwegian A 17 (nothing very remarkable, certainly), and in Danish D 31 wrings his hands and is very unhappy, because Agnes refuses to return. It is much more important that in one of the Swedish copies of the merman ballad, Grundtvig, II, 661 a, we find a trace of the 'christendom' which is made such an object in the Scottish ballads:
And christened her with water and with wine.
'The Maid and the Dwarf-King,' Danish E, is translated by Prior, III, 338; Swedish A by Stephens, Foreign Quarterly Review, XXV, 35; Swedish C by Keightley, Fairy
- ↑ This trait, corresponding to the prohibition in the Norse ballads of bowing when the holy name is pronounced, occurs frequently in tradition, as might be expected. In a Swedish merman-ballad, 'Necken,' Afzelius, III, 133, the nix, who has attended to church the lady whom he is about to kidnap, makes off with his best speed when the priest reads the benediction. See, further, Arnason's Islenzkar þjóðsögur, I, 73 f; Maurer's Isländische Volksagen, 19 f; Liebrecht, Gervasius, p. 26, LVII, and p. 126, note (Grundtvig).
- ↑ The merfolk are apt to be ferocious, as compared with hill-people, elves, etc. See Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie, I, 409 f.
- ↑ I 79, of a second edition, which, says Vraz, has an objectionable fantastic spelling due to the publisher.
