Chapter II: Introduction (1)

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It may be assumed that the student who approaches the Danish Ballads has already acquired some acquaintance with the prevailing theories as to the origin of Ballads in general. On that dark and debatable question I am unqualified to enter. To the earnest beginner I commend Dr. T. F. Henderson’s excellent Cambridge Manual _The Ballad in Literature_, where the opinions of Child, Gummere, Kittredge, and other authorities, are discussed with lucidity, learning, and common-sense. Suffice it here and now to say that those who push to extremes the theory of Communal Authorship must be capable of belief in that mythological personage who was born of nine mothers. While some Ballads (with their Incremental Repetition and so forth) were obviously created between leader and chorus in the Dance, others, no less obviously, were the work of individual poets. As the nineteenth century had its Walter Scott and its Hawker of Moorwinstow, so earlier ages had the anonymous minstrels who stamped the mark of original genius on “Niels Ebbeson” and “Sir Patrick Spens.”

“At the period when these songs were born, classes were mingled
together, or rather did not as yet exist. The people was one;
it was the _élite_, the best among them, who interpreted what
all felt, but all could not express—who sang in the name of
all. And thus it is that this poetry belongs to the populace
as a whole.... It resembles a stone constantly rolled by the
waves” (Pineau).

Child, moreover, points out that the British Ballad “was not originally the property of the common orders among the people”—and in Denmark, says Henderson, “it was fostered and favoured more particularly by the upper classes, and was for some centuries the chief medium of literary expression and culture.”

In Denmark, as elsewhere, the more primitive forms of the Ballad were closely connected with the Dance—the _carole_, or circular dance with joined hands, accompanied by the voice; a pastime which still survives in the Faroë Islands. The word _Ballad_, indeed, is derived from the South Italian _ballare_ = to dance, which in its turn comes from the Greek. The Teutonic tribes, whose sword-dances are mentioned by Tacitus, may, in the beginning, have learnt dancing from the Celts. Be that as it may, the round dance became popular throughout Europe during the early Middle Ages (roughly speaking, between 1149-1400), and took the North by storm, from the King’s court to the Icelandic farmstead. The dance-songs made light of frontiers, just as the Australian corroborees pass, irrespective of language, from tribe to tribe. Vainly did Saxo Grammaticus record his opinion that “such mountebank antics” (gøglerspring) were unworthy of persons of quality. Every knight had his own dancing-ground—as do Papuan chiefs at the present day. Vainly did the Church frown on a pastime associated with Beltane fires, and other unhallowed survivals of paganism. Absalon, it is true, when in 1158 he became Bishop of Sjælland, put a stop to light-heeled frolic among the merry monks of Eskilø. The Copenhagen clergy in 1425 forbade “heathen” songs and dances on the Feast of S. John. But the churchyard was still the popular place to dance in, especially on the wake-nights of the greater festivals, when the people assembled from far and near. England behaved no better; a shocking record exists of an English priest, so obsessed by the refrain which had rung in his ears all night, that he began the Mass with “myn hertë swete!”

The leader of the Dance sang the Ballad proper: the other dancers came in as chorus with the Burden or Refrain. Some Burdens merely imitate instrumental music; such are our own Hey nonny nonny, Tirly low (the shepherd’s pipe)—the Danish Hejt lejt lejtli, tra fal de ral, etc. Others were derived from the Ballad itself, which was originally a lyrical outburst improvised by the singer.

Here is a gay example from the Icelandic:

“Fair the swan is singing
All the summer-tide:
Sweet it is to dance and play
My lily white!
Fair the swan is singing” (Burden).

Or, in graver mood:

“Heavy are my sorrows,
A load of lead to bear,
Burnt are all the castles
Were builded new and fair.”

(This was sung by the Icelander Thord Andresson when treacherously captured by Gissur the Earl, 1264.)

A list of Icelandic Dance-Burdens is given in the _Corpus Poeticum Boreale_.

The beginning of the thirteenth century inaugurated a new fashion. Narrative poetry—originally a separate art—was combined with the dance-lyric. Fables, for instance, were borrowed from the Troubadours, the Minnesingers, and the various foreign minstrels attached to the Danish court. The lyrics were sometimes retained as introductory stanzas, sometimes broken up into Burdens. Thus the song:

“The King he rules the castle
And over all the land,
And over many a warrior bold
With shining sword in hand,”

lent its first line as Burden to a Ballad of King Didrik:

“King Didrik sits in Brattingsborg,
And far and wide looks he:
Oh, none know I in all the world
Who may my equal be!
The King he rules the castle.”

Every Ballad, in time, came to have its own introductory stanza, calculated to arouse the hearer’s attention and attune it to the story which followed—had also its own Burden, which echoed the principal theme. But many have survived shorn of both adjuncts: and a few have borrowed Burdens, sometimes far from appropriate.

The Danish Ballads, like all others, deal with love, warfare, and witchcraft. Like all others, they are pagan at heart. Some of their themes are peculiar to Denmark, some common to all Europe. The similarity, for instance, between certain Danish and Scottish Ballads suggests that the one country borrowed them directly from the other. The editors of the _C.P.B._ (where a list may be found) give the lead in the matter to Scotland; but other authorities are of a different opinion. Generally speaking, it is acknowledged that Denmark’s literary output was influenced far less by Britain than by France and the other Latin countries.

But, be the themes what they may, the Danish Ballads inform them with their own characteristic spirit—the glamour and grimness of the North. The battle-scenes show us glimpses of Bersark fury, and weapons with demon souls. The Dark Powers in the Ballads of magic are those born of long winter nights and misty waters. Here and there we meet with the gods of Valhalla, and the heroes sung in Old Norse Lays. Woman, in the love-ballads, is no Troubadour’s divinity, but a human helpmeet of warriors—brave, shrewd, strong-minded, occasionally strong-armed to boot. As for humour, while we have rollicking man-at-arms fun of the “Kinmont Willie” type, and some dry, pawky, Scots-like wit, a few Ballads charm us with such a delicate, wistful archness as flowers again in Andersen’s fairy-tales. There are, indeed, a number of Satirical Ballads, whose characters—gaffer and gammer, wandering fiddler, Bishop’s Daughter, and Mighty Maid—burlesque the heroes and heroines of the Ballads of chivalry. These, however, from the poetical standpoint, are of little or no significance.

The social conditions depicted in these Ballads are, in many respects, peculiar to Scandinavia. The atmosphere is distinctly democratic. Denmark had no school of court-poetry, no minstrel-class corresponding to the Troubadours and Minnesingers. Her kings made foreign marriages, and imported foreign talent; no petty courts, princely or ducal, existed to serve as centres of culture.[1] The native singers found patrons among the native gentry, or lesser nobility—the Knights, whose position in many respects was that of the old-time English country squire. With the tastes, interests, and outlook of this class the Ballads as a whole are chiefly concerned.

Apart from such ballad-cycles as those dealing with the two Valdemars, the King mostly appears merely as a power in the background—a _deus_ (or, more frequently, a _diabolus_) _ex machinâ_. Of devoted loyalty, of patriotism identified with the royal person, we find traces only in the most ancient historical Ballads—with an occasional after-echo such as the Page’s words in the “King-Slaying in Finderup” (No. 6). His courtiers and “captains” are derided by the country-bred minstrel: “So long have they served in the royal court they can bear nor heat nor smoke!”

The Church, too, is only seen afar off—affects the Knight chiefly through the convent school, where young ladies are educated. The Burgher is an unknown quantity. Only in a late (fifteenth-century) Ballad do we hear of the rich merchants, with houses in “Randers street,” whose gilded vanes gleam over the walls, shaming the castles of envious Knights.

The Yeoman (Bonde) class was that with which this lesser nobility was most intimately connected—the class whence it sprang, wherein it was merged after the Peasant Revolt of 1584. Well-born youths are described as “noble yeomen’s sons” (ædelige Bøndersønner), and a yeoman’s wife makes occasional appearance as heroine of a Ballad. The Knight defends the yeoman against pillage and oppression. The two classes, however, are distinct, and keep their distance. The Knight may farm his own land—may even be found holding the plough—but he is, none the less, the yeoman’s social superior. His daughter, if she weds a yeoman, must “doff the scarlet fine, and don the wadmal grey.”

The Knight was served by his Squires (svende)—sometimes of yeoman extraction, but more frequently landless nobles, or younger sons—his lady by her Maidens. The former received wages, and a training in chivalry; the latter learnt polite deportment, household duties, and needle-craft. Thus in our own “Fause Foodrage”:

“And ye sall teach my gay goss-hawk
To wield baith bow and brand,
And I sall teach your turtle-doo
To lay gowd wi’ her hand.”

The Knight’s existence, then, much resembled the Viking’s—was passed in warfare, with intervals of agriculture, of sport, or even of commerce. That it was lived chiefly “on the land” is shown by a thousand touches and images racy of the soil. The arrows stick “thick as hay” in Knight Stig’s mantle; young Engelbret hews down his foes “as the peasant cuts down corn.” The Knight’s absences from home are frequently mentioned—absences on foray, on trading journeys, or at the Thing—the Yeomen’s Thing or District Council, distinct from the great national Land’s Thing. There the local notabilities met to settle local affairs, conclude bargains, and dispose of their children’s hands in marriage (see “Lovel and John,” No. 28).

As this Knight was to some extent a country squire, so his dwelling rather resembled a fortified farm than a feudal castle. Its garth (gaard), surrounded by a palisade, contained a collection of separate buildings, mostly built of wood, and thatched with straw or reed. The linden tree which shaded the garth, and the castle gate which afforded a glimpse of the outer world, figure largely in the Ballads.

The main building contained the principal living-rooms, and was adorned with carved beams projecting from the gables—which beams, in process of time, were replaced by weather-vanes. Access both to ground-floor and upper storey (højeloft) was obtained by means of an outside gallery-staircase (svalegang, højloftssvale), where the traveller was wont to hang up his cloak (axler sit Skind) ere he entered the hall.

Refuge from attack was to be found in another building, the Stone-hall (stenstue)—or, where this was lacking, in the nearest church tower. (The term “stenstue” is occasionally applied to the main building, should it happen to be built of stone, but this is exceptional.)

“A house have I walled round with stone
That stands my garth within;
I wot when I take refuge there
I fear not a hundred men!”

Another most important building was the Maiden’s Bower, richly adorned, and “locked right well” lest it be “broken” by over-importunate suitors. Those fathers were censured as “inexperienced” who built it in too remote a spot.

A few Ballads speak of castles with dungeons and fortified gates, but these were few and far between.

Towards the close of the Middle Ages manners underwent a change; antique simplicity was corrupted. These unpretentious knights were swamped by the rise of a more powerful nobility, who united their estates through intermarriages, and followed the fashions of the court. The round dance was driven from the castle to the farmhouse. Persons of quality, however, retained a certain amount of interest in the old Ballads; and to this interest the fact is owing that Ballads in Denmark were earlier written down than those of any other European country. The young lady of the sixteenth century was wont to keep an album, wherein verses were inscribed by her friends; and, amid love-complaints, compliments, moral emblems, and so forth, the old national folk-poems found their place. From these albums were gathered the first collections of Ballads. Every lady’s bower had its own collection—and the singing of the Ballads during the long winter evenings led to much disastrous dilution of the original texts.

With the coming in of the seventeenth-century Pastoral, the fashionable career of the Ballad was over, but its value was recognized from the literary and historical point of view; and the business of collection began in earnest. Royal patronage was not lacking. In June 1586 Queen Sophie visited Tycho Brahé in his observatory on the isle of Hveen, was storm-bound for three days, and entertained with Ballads by another guest, Anders Vedel the historian. He promised her a collection, which promise materialized in the shape of _Queen Sophie’s Ballad Book_, followed shortly by another based on the great folio MS. of the Odensee nunnery (Karen Brahé’s library).

The yeoman and peasant, meanwhile, remained faithful to the Ballad as a means of recreation, and continued to import new ones, mostly from Germany. Ballads were sung in Jutland until late in the nineteenth century, and many of these, not previously written down, were collected during the national revival of the eighteen-forties.

Danish Ballads were not only collected in MS., but printed and published earlier than those elsewhere—Vedel’s _A Hundred Choice Danish Ballads_ in 1591; _Tragica, or Love Ballads_ in 1657. Peter Syr’s enlarged collection followed in 1695. _Danish Ballads from the Middle Ages_ was published in 1811-12 by Abrahamson, Nyerip, and Rahbek; and then came Sven Grundtvig’s epoch-making _Denmark’s Ancient Ballads_ (1853), which contains every known version of every specimen, with critical and historical prefaces.

An excellent popular selection, by Axel Olrik and Ida Falbe Hansen (_Danske Folkeviser i Udvalg_), was published in 1912; and from the ballad-versions given therein I have prepared the translations which follow.

[1] With one exception—the ducal court at Gottorp in Sleswik; but its intellectual influence suffered from the constant warfare among the Holstein nobility.

HISTORICAL BALLADS

I, II

VALDEMAR AND TOVE (A) AND (B)

The historical foundation for these two Ballads amounts only to this; that Valdemar I, or the Great (1157-82), had a mistress named Tove; that she bore him a son, Christopher; and that the King found it expedient to put her away, and ally himself with his opponent Knud Magnusson by marrying his half-sister Sophia. Nothing is known of Tove’s fate; her death at her rival’s hands is a figment of the popular fancy.

The older (A) version (preserved in Iceland) is chiefly interesting from its picture of Tove in the character of that perfect lover so dear to the mediæval masculine mind—the Patient Grizel, the Burd Ellen, who knows no jealousy where her lord’s affections are concerned. Valdemar’s apparently tactless questions are designed to bring out the contrast between the meek submission of the mistress and the frank hatred of the wife.

The Danish or B version, probably composed some fifty years later, takes a more human point of view. It sacrifices historical accuracy to dramatic effect by handing over Sophia’s son Knud (afterwards King) to Tove.

VALDEMAR AND TOVE, 1157 (A)

King Valdemar sailed here and there,
—Good sooth,—
He wed little Soffi, a maid so fair,
—King Valdemar he wooed them both.

“Harken, Tove mine, and hear,
Dost thou hold Queen Soffi dear?”

“Less dear to me, I ween
Than my son, I hold the Queen.

“I will give her a good grey steed,
And the name of Queen she shall bear indeed.”

“Harken, Soffi mine, and hear,
Dost thou hold my Tove dear?”

“I love her all so well
As the wild wolf in the dell.

“I will give her castles three,
She may burn therein for me!”

The Queen she spake to her page so small:
“Now bring Tovelille in to the hall!”

So fain was Tove to see the Queen
She clad her at night by the taper’s sheen.

She clad her in a kirtle of blue,
At every seam red gold shone through.

She clad her in a silken sark,
Of eleven maidens the handiwork.

She wrapped her in a cloak of red,
And thus to see the Queen she sped.

“Art fainer with the King to speak
Or the bath with me to seek?”

“Far fainer with the King I’d speak
Than the bath with thee I’d seek!”

Soffi the Queen was strong of arm,
She thrust her in to work her harm.

So hot she heated the fire beneath
That Tovelille could scarce draw breath.

“Help me, Christopher, son of mine!
Soffi will slay me in dule and pine!”

“Oh how should I give help to thee?
Twelve armed men have hold of me!”

Up spake the King, his men among,
“Why goeth not Tove to Evensong?”

Up spake Queen Soffi, red with wrath:
“Thy Tove is wearied with her bath!”

“Well, Soffi, will I pay thy pain,
Shalt never sleep in my bed again!

“Better was she with one cow for dower
Than thou art, Soffi, with town and tower!

“Better was Tove in silken sark
Than thou art, Soffi, with all thy goldsmith’s work!

“Dearer is Tovelil, tho’ she be dead,
Than thou, for all thy gold so red!”

The way was long, the way was drear,
The King himself bore up the bier.
—Good sooth.
King Valdemar, he wooed them both.

VALDEMAR AND TOVE (B)

Gay went the dance in King Valdemar’s hall,
There danced the Queen with maidens small;
—By my troth; King Valdemar he wooed them both.

There danced the Queen with maidens fair,
There danced Tove with waving hair.

“Harken now, Tove, my playfellow sweet!
Gird up thy silk skirts around thy feet.”

“Small praise from me the King should gain
If I might not trail a silken train.”

“Tove, my playfellow, tell to me
How did the King get his will o’ thee?”

“The King he won his will of me,
For stronger than I the King was he.

“I was but a maiden small
Dwelling in my father’s hall.

“So little and fair by the door stood I
When the King and all his merry men they came a-riding by.

“By nine, by ten, his knights he sent,
But never for their commands I went.

“The King he came himself with all his merry men,
And I, Tovelille, must follow then!”

“Tove, my playfellow, tell thou me
What bridal-gift he gave to thee.”

“He gave me a chest of golden sheen
Such as was never in Denmark seen.

“He gave to me nine rings of gold
That Sweden’s Queen did have and hold.

“He clad me in silk and in scarlet gay;
Thou and all thy maidens ne’er went in such array.”

Up spake Queen Soffi in anger wild:
“’Twas enough, I trow, for a yeoman’s child!

“By God the Lord, while I breathe and live,
Less by half to thee shall he give!”

The Queen she wrapped her in cloak of vair,
To speak with King Valdemar did she fare.

“Now answer what I ask of thee;
Why lovest thou Tove more than me?”

“For this Tovelille to me is dear,
Because she hath two sons that serve my person near.

“When Flensborg town I first rode by
Christopher bore my banner so high.

“When first I rode to Holsterland
Knud bore my banner in his right hand.”

Winters twain were gone and past
Ere the Queen got her will at last.

All on a holy Christmas day
Tove sought the kirk to pray.

Tovelille fared forth in the street,
Golden silk and samite went floating round her feet.

Forth from her window the Queen did spy,
She saw proud Tovelil passing by.

The Queen she spake to her maidens three:
“Now bid proud Tovelil come to me!”

Tove wrapped her in cloak of vair,
And unto Soffi’s bower did fare.

“Lithe now and listen, proud Tove, to me;
I will seek the bath to-night with thee.”

“Ne’er of the bath can I have my fill;
I’ll do thy bidding with right good-will!”

The Queen she spake to her pages three:
“Take heed that the bath is hot for me!

“Heat it hot, and heat it red!
There shall Tovelil lie dead!”

Tovelil went in before.
The Queen herself she locked the door.

“Here is no water, here is no lye!
Let me out for the sake of God on high!”

Christopher went riding by,
He heard his mother wail and cry.

He struck the door a blow so stout
That bolt and nail came leaping out.

He burst the door with rage and wrath,
He bore his mother forth from the bath.

He bore her out where the blossoms blow,
But she was dead ere first cock-crow.
—By my troth; King Valdemar he wooed them both.

III, IV, V

THE DAGMAR BALLADS

QUEEN BENGERD

Valdemar II (1202-41) has been strangely dealt with by the Ballads. They are silent alike as to the warlike exploits which won him the name of Sejr, the Victorious, and the administrative reforms commemorated in his other title of Legifer. His crusade against the heathen Esthonians—even the miraculous gift of the Dannebrog, the national standard blazoned in the armorial bearings of the conquered city Reval—left popular imagination unmoved. It seized, however, on the images of his two Queens, ascribing to the one all that was liked, to the other all that was loathed, in the King’s treatment of his subjects.

Dragomir the Bohemian came to Denmark in 1205, bore the King a son, Valdemar, and died two years later, probably in childbirth. From the first she was the people’s darling; her Slav name was changed to Dagmar (Dag-mø = day-maid or light-bringer) “by reason,” says a contemporary chronicler, “of her great beauty.”

The Ballads of her Bridal and Death were probably composed by the next generation, and have little pretension to historical accuracy. Bishop Valdemar, for instance, was not the Queen’s uncle, but the King’s first cousin—son of Knud Magnusson, whose sister was Valdemar’s mother. In consequence of an attempt to usurp the throne, as the German Emperor’s vassal, he was thrown into prison at Søberg, where he lay for fourteen years. His release in 1205 was due to the Pope’s intervention, aided, as a monkish chronicle puts it, “by the loving representations of Bishop Andreas and others”—but the people, perhaps with some reason, pictured Dagmar as the peacemaker.

A second Ballad of her bridal describes her wooing by Sir Strange as the King’s proxy:

“I saw a sail fare o’er the Sound,
—So many a pennon of gold—
There sailed he, Sir Strange, with Dagmar the Queen.”

Little is known of Valdemar’s second Queen, Berengaria, except that she too was beautiful. But, since she came of a contentious and covetous family, the popular view of her character may be accurate enough. The “binding the harbours with iron bands” means the closing of them with chains, so that tribute might be exacted from incoming vessels. The Ballad’s account of her death—a relishing piece of poetical justice—has no foundation in fact.

III

QUEEN DAGMAR’S BRIDAL, 1205

It was the Queen of Bejerland
That to her daughter cried:
“Great honour will they show to thee
When thou art Denmark’s bride.”
—They sailed from noblest Bejerland.

“When thou art wed to Denmark’s King
Thou shalt have pride and praise;
Now bid the peasant pay no tax,
And he’ll love thee all his days!

“This first boon beg thou of thy lord,
And beg it withouten fear,
That Bishop Valdemar go free,
Thy mother’s brother dear!”

They spread the cloths of samite
To lie her feet before;
They took her, the lady Dagmar,
And led her to the shore.

They hoisted up their sails of silk
All on the golden mast,
And so they sailed to Denmark
Or e’er two months were past.

Down they cast their anchors
All in the snow-white sand;
They took her, the lady Dagmar,
And led her first to land.

They took her, the lady Dagmar,
And led her first to land;
It was the King of Denmark
Stretched forth his lily hand.

They spread the cloths of samite
To lie her feet before;
They led her, the lady Dagmar,
Up to the castle door.

All in the morning early,
Long ere the dawn of day,
It was the lady Dagmar
Her bridal-gift did pray.

“The first boon that I beg of thee,
I beg withouten fear;
Let Bishop Valdemar go free,
My mother’s brother dear!

“The second boon I beg of thee
’Tis with good-will, I trow;
Loose every captive from his irons,
And tax not the peasant’s plough!”

“Hush thee now, Queen Dagmar,
Speak no such words to me!
If Bishop Valdemar comes forth
A widow he’ll make of thee!”

She’s taken off her crown of gold
And laid it on the board:
“Oh, what shall I do in Denmark
Since thou wilt not hear my word?”

“Now bring me in Sir Strange,
And bring Sir Knud to me!
’Tis they shall ride to Attingborg
And set the captives free!”

And when he came from dungeon forth
He could not stand nor go:
“Here have I lain eight years and more,
Long years, I ween, and slow!”

She’s taken out her comb of gold,
To comb his yellow hair:
For every lock she ordered
Down fell a bitter tear.

“Harken now, Queen Dagmar,
And weep not thus for me!
For an I live but a twelvemonth
Sore shall my vengeance be!”

“Now hush thee, Bishop Valdemar,
Let be thy chiding vain!
Art thou thrown once more into Attingborg
Thou’lt ne’er win out again!”
—They sailed from noblest Bejerland.

QUEEN DAGMAR’S DEATH

Queen Dagmar lay in Ribe sick,
To Ringsted did she fare;
All the dames of Denmark’s land
She bade them seek her there.
—In Ringsted rests Queen Dagmar.

“Go fetch me four, go fetch me five,
The wisest among them all!
Go fetch little Kirsten of Rise,
The sister of Sir Karl.”

All so modest and so mild
She came to the bower door;
So fain of her was Dagmar the Queen
That she raised her head once more.

“Now canst thou read and canst thou write
To help me in my need,
Then shalt thou don the scarlet fine,
And ride my good grey steed.”

“Oh, can I read and can I write
I’ll do it for thee full fain,
For by my troth I tell thee
Sharper than steel is thy pain.”

She’s taken up Saint Mary’s book,
And the sheen of the golden crown
She could not see whenas she read,
So fast her tears ran down.

They led her up, they led her down,
And still her pain was sore:
“Oh, send ye word to the King our lord
To speak with me once more!”

Up he stood, the little page,
Full fain was he to speed,
He reached his saddle down from the beam
And mounted the milk-white steed.

The King stood on the tower so tall
And looked out far and wide:
“Oh, yonder I see a little page,
And ruefully doth he ride.

“Yonder I see a little foot-page,
And mournful is his mien;
Now grant, Almighty God in heaven,
That all be well with the Queen!”

In he came the little foot-page,
Before the board stood he:
“Now wilt thou speak with the Queen again
Thou must speak right speedilie!”

The King smote hard upon the board
That all the goblets rung:
“Almighty God in heaven forbid
That Dagmar should die so young!”

The King he rode by Skanderborg
With a hundred swains and one,
But when he rode by Ribe
Then rode he all alone.

Oh, woe there was in the women’s bower,
And bitter dule and harm,
For the Queen, or ever the King rode up,
Lay dead in Kirsten’s arm.

And when he entered in the door
He saw the bier beside:
“Now help me, God our Father in heaven,
My bitter grief to bide!

“Now pray for me, dames and damsels all,
And see that ye pray not in vain,
So fain am I to speak a word
With Dagmar once again!”

Uprose the Queen upon the bier,
And red, red were her eyne:
“Now woe is me, my noble lord,
That thus we meet in pine!

“The first boon that I beg thee now
I beg for love of me;
Give peace to every outlawed man,
And set the captives free.

“The second boon I beg thee now
I beg for love of thee;
Oh, take not Bengerd for thy mate,
So sour a shrew is she!

“The third boon that I beg thee now
I beg for love so dear;
That thou let Knud, my youngest son,
Be King in Denmark here.

“Ne’er need I ha’ burnt in bitter pains
By night and else by day,
Had I ne’er on the Sabbath tired my head
And tied my ribbons gay.

“Now time it is I were away,
No longer may I bide;
The bells of heaven are ringing for me,
And the angels wait beside.”
—In Ringsted rests Queen Dagmar.

QUEEN BENGERD

All in the morning, long ere day,
She for her bridal-gift did pray,
—Woe be on her then, Queen Bengerd!

“Now give me Samsey to have and hold,
And let every maid pay a crown of gold!”

To Bengerd spake the King eftsoon:
“Thou must beg another boon!

“So many a maid lives in poverty
She cannot do it though she die!”

“Dear my lord, now heed my prayer,
Let no lady scarlet wear!”

“Oh, can she buy it with gold and fee
She may wear it full well for me!”

“Dear my lord, my prayer now heed,
That no son of a churl may ride a fair steed!”

“Oh, can he come by it in honestie
He may ride it full well for me!”

“Dear my lord, now give commands
To close all the havens with iron bands!”

“Now where shall I so much metal win
As to close all the havens with fetters in?”

“Up to Ribe will we fare,
We shall find good blacksmiths there.

“How dare the peasant hope for more
Than hut of wood and hingeless door?

“What more gear should a peasant gain
Than a single cow and oxen twain?

“For every son that his wife shall bear
A piece of gold shall be my share.

“A piece of gold for every son,
For every daughter half a one!”

The King slept first in the dawning dim,
And good Queen Dagmar appeared to him.

“When thou farest abroad thy foes to find
Bengerd must not bide behind!

“Bides Bengerd behind a year, I say,
The babe in the cradle must rue the day!”

“Now busk thee and boun thee, Bengerd the Queen!
Shalt fare to the foray with me, I ween.”

The first shaft shot from the foeman’s bark
In Bengerd’s bosom found its mark.

Now Bengerd in darksome mould abides,
And the peasant hath oxen and kine besides.

Now Bengerd lies in mirk and mould,
And every maid hath her crown of gold!
—Woe be on her then, Queen Bengerd!

VI, VII, VIII

THE KING-SLAYING IN FINDERUP

MARSK STIG AND HIS LADY

EXTRACT FROM THE LONG BALLAD OF MARSK STIG

These Ballads have been selected from a cycle dealing with the murder of King Erik Klipping (1259-86), and the subsequent disturbances. All through his reign he was at feud with his turbulent nobles; in 1282 they extorted his signature to a Constitution (Denmark’s Magna Carta) safeguarding the rights of the nobility and liberties of the people; then, since he proved faithless, they did him to death. The murder took place on the night of November 22, 1286; his corpse was found next morning, with fifty-six wounds, in a barn at Finderup, whither he had retired to sleep during a hunting expedition. The assassins escaped for a time, but their identity was suspected, and the young King Erik Mœndved (1286-1319) was determined to have justice. At the Parliament of Nyborg (1287) a grand jury was impanelled to try the late King’s principal adversaries; nine, mostly of one family, were found guilty and declared outlaws, the royal marshal, Stig Andersen, among them. They took refuge among the islands, whence they harried the coasts of Denmark; and the protection afforded them by Norway gave rise to a lengthy war.

The “King-Slaying” is the earliest of the Ballads on this subject. The innocence of the King’s page Rane was loudly maintained by his friends, who asserted that he, “naked and weaponless, warded his master,” but evidence was forthcoming that proved his treachery.

The Ballad next in date describes the outlaws’ departure from Denmark, and Stig’s resolve to build a castle at Hjælm. The third of the series tells of his ill-omened dream, and his wife’s attempt to explain it away—his ride to the royal castle, the Queen’s taunt that he wishes to usurp the crown, and his reply that such an ambition rather befits her paramour, Drost Ove. The young King declares him an outlaw; Stig threatens to keep his foot in Denmark, and begins the building of his castle, whose looming battlements scare the peasantry.

The fourth Ballad, “Marsk Stig and his Lady” (No. 7), was written after a lapse of time when the political motive for the Slaying had been forgotten, and replaced by one more romantic, based on a vague tradition. The King, in fact, appears as David, and Stig as Uriah the Hittite. The Ballad has therefore no claim to historical accuracy; moreover, it places the action throughout in Sjælland.

Latest of all comes “The Long Ballad of Marsk Stig,” which—after the fashion of the “Lytell Geste of Robin Hood”—unites all the other Ballads in a consecutive narrative, reproducing them mostly word for word, yet enriching them with its own characteristic touches. The King’s villainy is heightened by his promise to watch over Dame Ingeborg during her husband’s absence; “she shall suffer no more wrong than if thyself wert home.” Rane, the treacherous page, appears as sister’s son to the Dame, with whom he plots the King’s murder. After Stig’s defiance at the Thing, and before the Slaying, the Long Ballad inserts an episode peculiar to itself; the amorous King goes a-hunting with Rane, gets lost in the wood, and encounters an Elf-Maid, who, in riddling words, prophesies his imminent death.

This poem, fine as it is, foreshadows the decline of the Ballad pure and simple, and its supersession by the more lengthy and complicated Romance, or novel in verse.

There are other Ballads (not contemporary) dealing with the minor characters in the drama, which give picturesque glimpses of the outlaw’s adventurous life:

“Marstig he had daughters twain,
And all their lot was sorrow and pain.
The elder took the younger by the hand,
And thro’ the wide world did lead her.”

(Since, in some versions, the wandering maidens are the King of England’s daughters, it is probable that Marsk Stig’s name crept in from a semi-historical Ballad of Erik Mœndved’s Bridal, wherein the young Queen begs the release of Stig’s daughters from prison.)

Another sings the “Wooing of Ranild Jonson,” who by threats forces his beloved from her reluctant parents:

“Nought for their bridal bower they found
But the wood and the wild and the low green ground,
For sorely was he severed from friends and kinsmen.
...
Forests have ears, and fields have eyes;
We must wander, my maid, as the wild swan flies,
Since we are severed both from friends and kinsmen.”

THE KING-SLAYING IN FINDERUP, 1285

So many dwell in Denmark
Would all be masters there!
They’ve ridden up to Ribe
And close disguise they wear.
—And therefore the land lies in peril.

They’ve clothed them in a close disguise
As friars of orders grey,
And up the land they’ve ridden
Their leal lord to betray.

They watched him in, they watched him out,
They watched thro’ time and tide,
They watched him till the woful hour
He should to Finderup ride.

They rode into the goodman’s garth,
And shining spears they bore;
Was never a man might know them
For the monkish cowls they wore.

Oh, they rode in where the wax-light stood
A-burning in the bower;
They led him out, the youthful King,
And that was an evil hour.

“Harken, Ranild Jonson,
Wilt thou defend my life,
Half my kingdom I’ll give thee,
And my sister to thy wife!”

It was Ranild Jonson
That hewed at beam and board;
Good sooth, most like a traitor
Did he defend his lord!

Oh, they’ve struck in at the shoulder,
And out at the heart they smite:
“There shall be woe in all Denmark
For the deed we ha’ done this night!”

It was the little foot-page
That mote not bear the sight;
The saddle he took from the good grey steed
And set it upon the white.

The saddle he took from the good grey steed
And set it upon the white,
And he has ridden to Skanderborg
Before the fall of night.

The Queen sits on the tower so tall,
And looks forth far and wide:
“Yonder I see a little foot-page,
And swiftly doth he ride.

“All on his master’s steed he rides,
And woe is me for fear!
Now watch, Almighty God in heaven,
Over my lord so dear!”

“Now GOD have mercy on his soul!
For slain our lord doth lie;
The King lies killed in Finderup,
And the land is in jeopardy!

“Now watch ye well your castle,
Now watch ye well your realm,
Now watch ye well your own young son
Shall stand at Denmark’s helm!”

“So long as thou and I shall live,
Though ill thy tidings be,
Fire and food in the royal court
This shalt thou have in fee!”
—And therefore the land lies in peril.

VII

MARSK STIG AND HIS LADY

It is young Sir Marstig must journey far and wide;
It is young King Erik that hath betrayed his bride.
—The lady she sits in Sælland, and weeps right woefully.

It was young Sir Marstig that home from sea did fare;
She would not rise, his own dear wife, nor give him greeting there.

It was young Sir Marstig that entered in apace;
She would not rise, his own dear wife, nor look him in the face.

Still he stood, Sir Marstig, and thought right heavily:
“What ails her then, mine own dear wife, that hath no word for me?”

“When thou didst depart, my husband, I was a knightly dame;
Now am I queen in Denmark—the greater is my shame.

“Never again shalt slumber all on my lily-white arm,
Until thou hast slain King Erik, that wrought me dule and harm!”

It was young Sir Marstig that rode away to the Thing;
Never a word he answered, until he should meet with the King.

It was young Sir Marstig stood forth in all men’s sight,
He greeted there both page and squire and many a noble knight.

Up he stood, King Erik, and took him by the hand:
“Welcome now, Sir Marstig, home to lord and land!”

Up and spake Sir Marstig, and wrathful was his mind:
“Oh, little I guessed when I fared forth what falsehood I left behind!

“Both Revel and Riga I won for thee, and that with mickle strife,
While thou, King Erik, didst bide at home to ravish my fair young wife!”

“Harken now, Sir Marstig, and be not wroth with me!
Seven castles in Sælland, all will I give to thee.”

“Seven castles in Sælland will never ’suage my shame;
Know thou, King of Denmark, dearer I hold my dame!

“Harken, King of Denmark, and heed the words I say:
No fealty shalt thou have of me until my dying day!”
—The lady she sits in Sælland, and weeps right woefully.

VIII

THE LONG BALLAD OF SIR MARSK STIG

(_Extract_)

Sir Marstig has donned his armour of proof
And ridden away to the Thing,
With his merry men well weaponed in steel,
All for to seek the King:
—My noble lord, the young Sir Marstig.

It was young Sir Marstig
Before the Thing stood forth;
He greeted the redesmen of the realm
And the nobles of the north.

Sir Marstig stood in open Thing,
And thus did speak and say:
“Because my wife hath suffered wrong
Do I stand here to-day.

“Oh, I fared forth to a far countrie
And risked for the realm my life—
Thou satst at home, King Erik,
To ravish my fair young wife!”

Up spake young King Erik,
And smiled ’neath cloak of vair:
“Oh, her consent and will thereto
As good as mine they were!”

Up he spake, Sir Marstig,
In mood that needs must mourn:
“Oh, well we wot the ancient saw
That scathe must follow scorn.

“Now thou hast ravished my fair young wife
A mock o’ me to make,
But wot thou wilt, King Erik,
I’ll slay thee for her sake!”

It was young Sir Marstig
That turned him from the Thing:
“Bear witness, redesmen of the realm,
That I defy the King!”

“Now lithe and list, Sir Marstig,
And let such prating be!
Castles and holds and lands so green
All will I give to thee.”

“Oh, little reck I of holds or lands,
They ne’er shall ’suage my shame!
I would that the wrong had ne’er been wrought
Against my dainty dame!”

“Oh, Marstig, never so fast canst ride,
But I can ride faster still;
But wilt thou be mine enemy
Then follow thy wasteful will!”

“Oh, let my riding be ne’er so slow,
And ne’er so mild my mind,
Yet have we seen a small greyhound
Run down both hart and hind.

“Only do thou remember
The cause I have had to plead;
Oft haps it that a hillock small
Doth throw a mighty steed!”

* * * * *

Now when Sir Marstig slew the King
Little he rued the deed!
Forth he fared to Skanderborg
All on his swiftest steed.

It was she, the Queen o’ Danes,
Forth from the window spied:
“Oh, yonder I see the self-made King
That to our hold doth ride!”

“Nay, never a self-made King am I
For all thy words, I ween;
That name befits Drost Lovmand,
Lay last thine arms between.

“Oh, little to thee King Erik’s death,
And less thy dule and pine,
So long as he lives, Drost Lovmand,
And thou dost hold him thine!”

Up spake young Prince Christopher,
Clad all in the scarlet red:
“Oh, little amends, I wot, ye make
For my father fallen and dead!”

Up he stood, Prince Christopher,
And spake a royal word:
“Shalt get thee gone from out the realm
If I am King and lord!”

“And must I depart from Denmark
To sail the sea so deep,
So many a widow will I make
That the noblest dames shall weep!

“And must I go a-roaming
From wife and bairn, O King,
Denmark shall feel my foot, I trow,
Both winter and summer and spring!”

* * * * *

It was young Sir Marstig,
Home to his hold did fare;
It was beauteous Ingeborg
Came forth to meet him there.

Up spake young Sir Marstig,
And held her in his arm:
“Now have I slain King Erik
That wrought thee hurt and harm!

“Now wilt thou follow an outlawed man
To dwell a landless dame,
Rather than be a light o’ love,
And bear the King his name?”

“Oh, rather I’d follow an outlawed man
To dwell a Danish dame,
Than I would be a light o’ love
And bear the King his name!”

* * * * *

100

Oh, they have builded a hold at Hjælm,
A hold with tower and wall,
Not to be won with engine of war,
By arrow nor cannon-ball.[2]

101

Forth to his field went the farmer
All for to sow his corn:
“Now help us, God in heaven above,
Since Hjælm hath gotten a horn!”

102

Marstig he builded a hold at Hjælm,
A hold with wall and tower;
The King in vain laid siege thereto
With all his royal power.
—My noble lord, the young Sir Marstig.

[2] Cannons (bösser) are first mentioned in the time of Valdemar Atterdag (1340-85), and were certainly not known when Hjælm was besieged by Erik Mœndved. Their mention here is a proof that the Long Ballad was put together some hundred years after the event.

NIELS EBBESON

Niels Ebbeson was the man of his hour; and the hour was one of the blackest in Danish history. The worthless King Christopher was dead, his son Valdemar abroad, and the greedy Holstein nobles were scrambling for the choicest parts of the kingdom. One of these local tyrants, Count Gert, or Gerhardt, held Fyn and Jutland in pledge; and how the Jutlanders found deliverance is best told by a Franciscan chronicler, writing in 1385:

“Count Gerhardt of Holstein was then (Jan. 1340) in Lubeck.
He heard tidings that his sister’s son, Count of Sleswik,
had made agreement with the Danes that they should establish
the aforesaid Valdemar (V. Atterdag, King Christopher’s son)
in the kingdom, and marry him to Hedvig, the Duke’s sister.
Moreover, the Count knew well that many nobles and cities would
fain, for the sake of peace, have a King in the land.... Count
Gerhardt sent far and wide for help, and there came to him much
people.... He invaded North Jutland.... Not long thereafter
the Count fell sick in Randers.... It was his custom, when he
was able, to sit up at night with his chaplain, and keep the
Hours like a priest. When the Danes learnt his whereabouts,
sixty doughty karls assembled, came to Randers on Thursday
night (April 1, 1340) and, as though they were the night-watch
for the sleeping army, took possession of a stone house. When
the Count had read his Hours and lain down again, they came
and struck him dead in his bed, with his chaplain and three
pages. This heard a renowned knight from Westphalia, Henrik
von Vitinghof, whose lodging was hard by: he came forth and
attacked them, but they escaped, each his own way, without
hurt. The foreign men-at-arms are much to be blamed for
defending their lord so ill; and they were forced with shame
and scathe to return to the far countries whence they came.”

We learn from other sources that the patriots fired a house to divert the Germans’ attention, and that they escaped over Randers Bridge, which—having previously loosened the timbers—they broke down behind them. Thus they, and their leader Niels Ebbeson, saved Denmark from becoming a German province.

Little or nothing, apart from this exploit, is known of Niels Ebbeson; his very dwelling-place, “Noringsris”—“Norroway” in one version of his Ballad—is unidentified. He and two of his brothers fell, fighting against the Holsteiners, at Skanderborg, on November 1, 1340; and their bodies were taken to the family burial-place in Vestervig monastic church.

Three noble families claimed him; but recent researches have proved that he belonged to the Strangesons, chieftains in Ty, and descendants of Ebbe Skammelson (see No. 11), which family played a prominent part during the first half of the fourteenth century. They were connected by blood and intermarriage with another clan of Strangesons, with the Frosters, Ove Haas, Niels Bugge, and the Globes of Vendesyssel. (This Ove Haas was a partisan of Count Gerhardt’s, and fell at Randers.) In the opening dialogue of the Ballad the Count hints at Ebbeson’s rumoured complicity with Bugge, leader of the rebellion, and tries generally to discover the attitude of Niels’ powerful connections. With the latter’s defence of Anders Frost, the trial of wits becomes a quarrel—for here the German and Danish systems of fealty are brought into collision.

The services of the vassal, by German law, belonged from birth to his liege lord, with whose consent alone could the contract be broken; whereas the Danish chieftainship was based on the Law of Commutation, which gave the vassal the annual right to “take leave” (Orlov tage) and serve another chieftain. Twice over in the Ballad does Ebbeson gives his “swains” the choice whether or no they will follow him into danger; and twice over the system of free-will service is vindicated by their answer.

Valiant attempts have been made by Danish antiquaries to identify “Swain Trøst”—Vedel, for instance, provided him with a name and a family—just as their English confrères would fain find an original for Robin Hood. But this Trusty Page had no local habitation: his very name is borrowed from the Ballad of Young Danneved; for the Svend Trøst who saves his lord at a pinch is a figure frequently found in the ballad-world. Popular imagination, through him, does honour to all his class.

This Ballad is obviously the work of a minstrel (not contemporary with Niels), and is not associated with the Dance.

The Revised Conclusion is by another hand, and slightly later in date than the original version. A third exists, very imperfectly preserved, which is more historically accurate than either. It replaces Anders Frost by Esge, his father, and depicts Niels as asking aid of his brother Knud Ebbeson of Bygholm. We learn from it—with regret—that Niels’ speech to his house-carles, and Swain Trøst’s achievement, are the inventions of an admiring posterity.

One other poetical pæan must be quoted—the song-burst of a grave chronicler:

“M semel et ter C bis binos X lege per te.
Danorum mentes beat ipse dies Sitientes!
Filius Ebbonis Nicholaus more leonis
stravit serpentem Gerardum bella gerentem.”

NIELS EBBESON, 1340

The Count to Denmark took his way,
Nor failed for fear of strife,
Tho’ langsyne ’twas to him foretold
He there should lose his life.

Was none that might gainsay his will
His fate to put to test;
Yeoman and boor and knight and knave,
With all he will be guest.

The Count he called Niels Ebbeson
To come and meet with him,
And truce he sent him therewithal,
And safety for life and limb.

The Count he met Niels Ebbeson
Northward beside the sea:
“Now be thou welcome, Niels Ebbeson,
Right welcome unto me!

“Blithe is thy cheer, Niels Ebbeson,
Retainer dear of mine!
Say, what is the mind of the northern Jutes,
And what of kinsmen thine?”

“Oh, kinsmen have I ’mid the northern Jutes,
And my wife hath kin alsò;
And all of them shall do thy will,
If they thy will may know.”

“Niels Ebbeson, thou art a valiant man,
And a man of wit beside,
And canst thou not ride straightforward,
The long way round thou’lt ride.

“Now lithe and listen, Niels Ebbeson,
Wilt thou mine errand speed,
Then say how many swains hast thou
Will stand thee by at need?”

“Oh, five and forty carles have I,
Such as they well may be;
And be they many or be they few
Right dear are they to me.”

“And hast thou five and forty carles
Well art thou served, I ween!
But last night wert thou in Sir Bugge’s hold
With a hundred mail-clad men.”

Niels Ebbeson he stamped his foot,
And straight made answer high:
“Is any man here, or knight or knave,
Who dares maintain that lie?

“Is any man here, or knight or knave,
Dares put it to the touch,
Never a foot will I give back,
For I have sworn as much!”

“Lithe and listen, Niels Ebbeson,
Such words must have an end!
Now seek him, and see, Sir Bugge,
If he will be my friend.

“Sir Bugge and Povl Glob the young
To do my will did swear,
And Sir Anders Frost is one with them,
And foremost in counsel there.

“And more have sworn to do my will
That now will work me woe;
So list and heed Sir Bugge’s rede,
And see how the thing will go!”

“Oh, nought know I of Sir Bugge’s mind,
What he may say or do;
But Anders hath kept his faith with thee,
As all men will tell thee true.

“Anders hath kept his faith with thee,
As all men will tell thee true;
But, would he take leave of thy service,
Such leave is a free man’s due.

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Danish balladsChapter II: Introduction (1)

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