i42	ROMANCE BALLADS
Frederic II. The range of this story Is from France to Greece,
with Schiller's Der Toucher as an offshoot. It Is not easy to deter-
mine where It was first made a ballad; it may even have been exca-
vated from Belleforest In the sixteenth century. As for Marianson's
Ringst the priority of Boccaccio's use of the motif in the Decameron
(II. 9) Is undoubted; but again there is no clear indication as to
where it first took ballad form.
From the Low Countries came the Holofernes ballad of Renaud
the Woman-Killer and the Leander song called by Doncieux The
Torch of Love. The soldier's return home, which has already been
mentioned, is either a fresh creation on a commonplace event, or
a worn-down variant of the Moringer ballad. Somewhat more
travelled are the pieces entitled Marguerite or the White Beast,
Belle Helene or the Dancing Girl who was drowned, and King
Renaud or Jean Renaud. They are all Scandinavian: the first Is a
tale of bewitchment; the second belongs to the cycle of the nixes;
the third is an offshoot of Elveskud. It lacks the beginning—the
encounter between the hero and the elf-woman—and so is less
perfect than the corresponding Breton poem of Count Nann. For
this reason, no doubt, Doncieux considered that the Breton piece
must have Intervened between the French and the Danish; and
that may have been the case. The evidence as to tunes does not
wholly confirm this opinion. Child reproduces two variants of one
tune In connexion with his Clerk Colvill, and it is clear that they
are versions of the melodies A, B, and C in the Udvalgte Danske
Folkeviser of Abraamson, Nyerup, and Rahbek (vol. v, melodies for
No. 35). A fourth tune, recorded by Kristensen from oral tradition
in 1891, differs considerably from these, but it is not unlike that
which Bujeaud found circulating in the Angoumois. There is also
an enigmatic Catalan tune, which might be associated with either
of these patterns. The Breton melody also might be of Scandin-
avian origin. On the other hand, the bulk of the melodies current
in France are of quite a different sort. They adopt various equiva-
lents of the melodic formula 72D, which is the one actually chosen
for reproduction in Doncieux's Romancero. I have encountered
what appear to be analogues of this type only in Czechoslovakia;
if the connexion be genuine, then it suggests that the prevalent
French tune is more recent than those of Ajigoumois and Catalonia,
and is an Intruder, perhaps from Germany. It would not be at all
surprising that the oldest and correct melody should be the one