296	NORDIC BALLADS
people. It is, therefore, not certain that this Esthonian ballad
belongs to the international cycle indicated. No doubt attaches to
The Daughter at her Mother's Grave (Vana Kannel 68), which exists
in several versions and stands especially close to the Lithuanian
ballad. In Finland, Inkerfs Suitors (Kanteletar: Virsi-Lauluja 9)
is a ballad of the cycle of the crusader's return. Lalmanti the great
'reiter5 leaves home; Eirikki falsely reports his death to Inieri;
Lalmanti returns. The names suggest Swedish provenience. The
Sea-Suitors (Kanteletar: Virsi-Lauluja 38) is one of the Merman
cycle. Among religious pieces Lonnrot printed one on St.
Catherine, a Dives and Lazarus with somewhat original details,
and a Magdalene (Kanteletar'. Virsi-Lauluja 3, 4, 5), In a general
way, all Christian ballads are evidence of the influence of Central
and Western Europe upon Finland and Esthonia. So, Maid Mary* s
Verse (Kanteletar: Virsi-Lauluja 6), the longest of all these pieces,
must be included among ballads indicating a foreign influence. It
certainly originated in the Christian towns of the western coast,
and not in Karelia, where it is now encountered.
The names of the Finnish and Esthonian types of folk-verse also
bear witness to the same effect. The indigenous word is laulu'
'song'. Two terms are current for 'narrative song', and of these
Lonnrot allows Virsi' Verse' as more appropriate to the tradi-
tional ballad. In Esthonia one encounters cviizi' (Vana Kannel^ i.
6), which is the German 'Weise' or Swedish 'visa'. The word
'runo' does not prevail in Esthonia, but only in Finland, where it
is a sign of Scandinavian guidance. Apart from the word 'laulu',
therefore, all the nouns involved indicate German or Swedish
models. Naturally, this evidence is more cogent when we consider
the new stanzaic songs which, in the coastal cities, have taken away
the fame of the Finnish 'runof. Lonnrot printed twenty-four
such pieces in the preface to his Kanteletar. They are in a variety
of metres: couplets with and without refrains, quatrains, verses of
five, six, seven, and eight lines. The length of the individual lines
also varies, and among the terms used to describe this sort of folk-
poetry we find 'romantsi5, the Spanish word which had been
acclimatized in Germany in the early nineteenth century.
Historical ballads give some indication of the age of the 'laulud'
also. The allusions in Hurt's Vana Kannel are few and vague.
There are conscript-ballads, and they refer to service in the Russian
armies. A couple of songs refer to a raid on the island of Oesel, off