HOW BALLADS SPREAD 85

False Knight and May CoUin. The French have Renaud wife-
killer^ perhaps from an English Intermediary; and so we reach the
Italian Monfemna and the Spanish and Portuguese Rico Franco.

The spread of German ballads in the immediately adjacent lands
has been very vigorous. As examples of wider influence one may
consider those of the Sudeli and Moringer cycles. The former
depends on the medieval epic of Kudrun, and has taken several
forms. The gist of the matter is that a brother discovers his long-
lost sister washing by the shore or otherwise ignobly employed (in
later forms she is a servant in an inn); generally he has made insult-
ing remarks to her while still not recognizing her, and the ballads
are sometimes spiced with the motif of incest narrowly avoided.
The Lusatian and Czech versions are of a late type. In France
there is the same theme, or a similar one, in the Hapless Bride
avenged by her Brothers, which appears as the Sister avenged in
Italy, and Clotilda in Provence. The name Clothilde does not
occur in the ballad, but was given by Arbaud to his version by way
of allusion to the daughter of Clovis, unhappily married to Amalaric
the Visigoth. In Spain the tale is told under the rubric Don Bueso.
The epic Kudrun rests probably on an older epic Hilde, which
belongs to the maritime peoples of the north. The Danish Mer-
maid may be a relic of the older poem.

The Noble Moringer or the Crusader's Return uses a plot as old
as the Odyssey. The details, however, are gathered into a well-
knit tale which can usually be recognized at sight. Immediately
after his wedding a nobleman leaves his wife, appointing a period of
years (usually seven) for his return. She is free to marry after they
have elapsed, but she usually waits still longer, and is often con-
strained to a new match against her will. Then the lord returns in
disguise, makes his way to the banquet, and attracts her attention
by dropping a ring into the loving-cup. The new match is broken
off at once; the new bridegroom being treated with considerable
harshness by most popular poets. The motif is universal, but the
plot is particular. One encounters it first in Germany about the
year 1200 in Caesarius of Heisterbach. The name of the minne-
singer, Heinrich von Morungen (of the twelfth century), is attached
by the unknown minstrel who modelled the opening of his poem on
the convention of the 'aubade'. In a later form the hero was stated
to be Henry the Lion of Brunswick, whence the Bruncvik of Czech
historical legends. In England the name is also changed, it has