182 ROMANCE BALLADS

of Corsica or Southern Italy, since it exactly corresponds to a part
of Bridesmaid into Bride (Politis 83). A ballad which might appear
to be written in praise of the power of love is Angela or the Dead
resurrected (x, p. 136). It is based, however, on a real event in the
sixteenth century. A girl, married against her will, died and was
buried. She revived when her true lover opened her grave, and a
lawsuit was begun before the tribunal at Valladolid to determine
whether death annulled the marriage.

To return to the more important narrative ballads, the Re-
marriage prevented (135), also known as Count Sun, describes how
a slighted lady comes and claims her husband before he takes to
himself a second wife. In England this motif is used in Young
Beichan and Susie Pye. The Spanish version arises by amalgama-
tion with an independent motif, The Signs of the Beloved, which
appears in reports of the husband's death: true reports in the case
of Belle Doette, false in Unter der Linde. Another theme current
in England—and this time of definitely English origin in ballad
literature—is Ramon Berenguer and the German Empress (162),
which is the Spanish representative of Sir Aldingar. The Spanish
poem is late; it is later than the castilianization of Catalonia. Its
source is the chronicle of Desclot, where a decasyllabic heroic poem
on this subject has been reduced to prose, not greatly deviating
from the probable poetic text. Narrative verse is rare in Old
Catalan literature, so that this instance (like that of the probable
heroic poem on the conquest of Majorca) is of high historical
interest. The immediate source of the Catalan poet was probably
Toulouse, which city was a distributing-centre for this and other
legends of remoter origin. Our Child Waters and the Piedmontese
Ambrogio and Lietta (Nigra 35) are among the closest parallels to
the Spanish Dona Arbola (x, p. 93). Definitely Italian in origin is
the ballad of the poisoner Mariana (x, p. 98), which is an offshoot
of Donna Lombarda. Rico Franco (i 19) is a worthy representative of
the Dutch cycle of Hallewijn, since it is swift and concise; and with
it is grouped a rather similar tale of a murderer outwitted by a
woman's ruse, Marquillos (120). The Danish Elveskud, passing
through France and becomingly roiRenaud, lost its elfin opening.
So it comes to Spain, where it is the ballad of Don Pedro and Dona
Alda(x, p. no).

These ballads of remoter origin bear marks of their passage
through France. Those of French origin are more numerous and