SCANDINAVIA 221

gestion are palpably literary devices which contrast with the un-
emphatic directness of the original. The original's merits depend
not on a form of words—essential in the case of Erlhonig—since the
words change with each version; the appeal is made by the inherent
mysterious dread of the events staring starkly through the im-
personal expression. The ballad is at home in Denmark. It has
travelled over all the North: the exact affiliation of the Faeroese
ballad is shown by the name given to the hero Olavur Riddararos
('knightly-rose7), which derives from the Icelandic Liljurds ('lily-
rose'), as that from the Norse Liljukrans ('lily-wreath'). In
England and Scotland it is Clerk Colvill, in Lusatia and Czecho-
slovakia The hickless Marriage (Haupt and Schmaler i, 3, Susil 89),
in Brittany Count Nann (Luzel i, p. 5), in France Le roi Renaud
(Doncieux 7), in Italy Sore-wounded or Count Anzolin (Nigra 21,
22), in Catalonia Count Ramon (Mila 204, 210), and in Spain and
Portugal Don Pedro (Menendez y Pelayo, Antologia x, p. no,
Braga, Romanceiro i, p. 627). In Germany, apart from the modern
translations by Herder (accepted in the Wunderhorn as an original
German folk-song) and Grimrn, the motif was used for the adven-
ture story of the Ritter von Stauffenberg. It is the most travelled
of all the Viser'. In the lands to the south, where elfin superstitions
were not rife, the interest is excited by the concluding tableau: the
young knight, mortally wounded, who conceals his death from his
newly wed or pregnant bride. The human tragedy of this poem is
as keen as its ghostly dread.

Elf-hillock (Elvehoj) has travelled less, but is scarcely inferior
(DGF 46), followed by Sir B0smer, Malfred, Duke Magnm, &c.
The Icelanders have created an unusual monster, the 'stafro*
(Grundtvig 9), which appears to be a combination of elf-queen and
hind; she bewitches Kari so that he forgets his runes.

Then there are the revenants. Two of these are of exceptional
interest: the Lenore-motif in Aage and Eke (DGF 90) and the step-
mother-motif in Moderen under Mulde (DGF 89). In the waking
of Angantyr and of Groa, Old Norse poems embodied the belief
that strong spells could rouse the dead to aid the living; and the
strongest of such spells, in ballad poetry, is love: the love of a
mother for a child or of a lover for the beloved. The bitter weeping
of Else wakens Aage from his rest, so that he comes and rides with
her to a common tomb; the bitter weeping of an injured child
wakens her mother to rise and reprove the cruel stepmother. Both