ENGLAND, SCOTLAND, AMERICA 239

still not very numerous in the fifteenth, German ballads began to
expand across the frontiers in the sixteenth century, following the
south-eastern and north-eastern ways. But in the sixteenth century
England had become a land of broadside ballads, with many
original composers and a dying oral tradition. Scotland, separated
from Holland and Germany by the length of England, was in con-
tact with France by its alliance and with Norway and Denmark by
its trade relations. Hence Hallewijn seems to have reached us, not
directly from the Low Countries, but from Scandinavia. We have
to wait until Scott translated Lenore, The noble Moringer, Sent-
pach9 The Fire-king, and The Erl-king, and then the contact is not
of oral tradition.

There are cases in which, whether a tradition be indigenous or
not, it is connected with us by the superior vigour of our versions.
Lord Randal (12) is such a one, and has spread—words and music
together—to Italy, which borrows so little directly from Britain.
Edward (13) is even more distinctive. The theme of fratricide is
common in all balladries, and the particular treatment given it here
is found in the Scandinavian countries (as in the Swedish Sven i
Rosengdrd), and even in Finland (Werinen Poika— one of the
modern type of imported ballads). The method of sharp question
and evasive answer is also commonly used: for an adulteress in the
Spanish Blancanina or a profligate girl in the Danish Witty Answer,
for a husband's murderess in the Czech Murderous Wife, and an
infanticide in the Polish Marcisia. Many of these are fine ballads,
but none is full of such breathless anxiety, none so stark, as the
Scottish Edward, The questions come hotly, but the delaying
refrain allows for the embarrassment of the mother and the evasive
boy as in

'Why dois your brand sae drap wi bluid,
Edward, Edward?

Why dois your brand sae drap wi bluid,
and why sae sad gang yee 0?y

'0 I hae killed my hauke sae guid>
Hither, mither,

0 I hae killed my hauke sae guid,
and I had nae mair bot hee 0.'

A similar claim could be made for Child Waters (63), the cruel
husband, a ballad with closer analogues in Italy and Spain than in
Scandinavia. It is both English and Scottish, as is The three