8o	HOW BALLADS SPREAD
Castilian Marqmtos, and Catalan Joven Guerrera imply a French
original, extant in the sixteenth century. In the Messin Puymaigre
encountered La brave Claudine. In Italy the ballad appears as La
Guerriera, and crossing the Adriatic on Venetian vessels it reached
Dalmatia and Serbia as Zlatija. The tests of her sex became at the
same time of a more improbable sort, though they continued to
include the essential test of stripping to bathe. Breaking down
into a popular tale, the story became the Silvertooth of the Al-
banians, the Basilopoula of the Epirot Greeks (who contaminated
with it the folk-tale of the wife who would not speak), and at last
reached Wallachia (Mml Crat). From France or Italy the ballad
reached Czechoslovakia in the Czech Bojovnice, where the second
half was lost. There is a White Russian ballad verbally connected
with the Czech, and at last this line comes to a stop in the Devuska-
vain of the Ukraine. In this last shape there is a new complication,
taken from another ballad, since the girl is advised not to fight in
front of or behind the main battle, and her neglect of good advice
involves her in further trials.
Donna Lombarda is the most famous of north Italian ballads.
The story how Rosmunda poisoned her faithless paramour Hel-
michis is as old as the Historia Langobardorum of Paul the Deacon.
This history was one of the most popular in the Middle Ages;
there is no need to ascribe very great antiquity to the ballad itself.
Its simple structure, however, shows that it is in the first flight of
the 'canti popolari', and this is naturally confirmed by the music.
In France the poem has the same form and content, but in Spain
and Portugal the anti-heroine's name has been forgotten and
replaced by Moriana, Julianesa, or Ausenia. Moriana is one of the
few 'romances* for which we have an older form than the one in
tirades; it exists also as a lyric, and that brings it closer to the
Franco-Italian style. In the other direction, towards the east, this
tale spread and was generalized to cover a variety of poisonings. A
convenient title is the German Schlangenkochin, since, apart from
the tense dialogue proper to the whole group, these derivative
pieces generally describe a menu of fish and snakes, or eels. They
vary according as the lady friend be the poisoner, or the suitor's
or the fiancee's mother, or a sister wishing to get her own way.
Thus we have the different varieties of the German Schlangen-
Mchin, the Danish Poisoning (Gifiblanding), the Czech Fiancee as
poisoner and Sister as poisoner, the Lusatian Hindrask and Evil