258 NORDIC BALLADS

itself to national heroes (Marko Kraljevic in Serbia, Dobrynja in
Russia). As The Husband's Return it appears destitute of most of
its details in French folk-song and in Germany (Erk-Bohme 49,
93, 110, 191). There are many possible 'denouements': the soldier
may kill his rival or find the match already complete; if only a
suitor, he finds his fiancee has been fickle; there may be an accom-
modation with this rival, such as the offer to him of his sister to wife,
or the lady may be considered guilty in a greater or less degree, and
the ballad end with a blood bath. But in the best and more de-
veloped ballads there is a precise contexture of incidents, as des-
cribed above, which it seems right to associate with The noble
Moringer itself. Tannhduser is a still finer ballad, in both High and
Low German and later in Danish. It is of the fifteenth century,
and has grown out of the songs by and attributed to the poet him-
self. The hero's heart is torn, like that of so many medieval men,
between beauty and salvation. The Church, represented by Pope
Urban IV, denies him salvation, and he turns back with passionate
despair to his cult of sinful beauty.

Henry the Lion (Erk-Bohme 26, 27) exists in the form of ballads
and mastersongs. It is a rambling romance which makes use of the
old Dietrich legend for the hero's intervention to defend a lion
against a serpent, and of the Moringer tradition for his absence and
home-coming. Though unworthy, it has passed northward as far
as Denmark, and has enriched Czech legendary history with a king
Bruncvik. Duke Ernst (Erk-Bohme 25) is of great length, and
should rather be deemed a romance than a ballad. The Count of
Rome (Erk-Bohme 29) is undoubtedly a ballad, and as such has
spread to Denmark and Sweden as well as to Holland. Its source
is the mastersong of Alexander von Metz oder der Graf im Pfluge;
and its characteristic motifs are the enslavement of the count, and
his wife's heroic coming in disguise to release him. She comes
disguised as a minstrel, and asks no reward from the Kaiser but the
freedom of the wretched prisoner. These particulars, apart from
the yoking of the count to the plough, are found in the Russian
ballad of Stavr Godinovic, which is thus probably of German
origin.

Two fine ballads inspired by Classical legends are The two King's
Children and The Evening Walk (Erk-Bohme 83-5, 86-8). The
former is the legend of Hero and Leander, derived from Ovid's
Herpides through a Middle High German poem. The ballad is