English and Scottish popular ballads - National Library of Scotland

daughter of Captain Tartaglia having been
declined, for reason, and another young woman
espoused, Tartaglia killed the count while they
were hunting.
The wounded man. already feeling the approach
of death, F, G, L. asks that his bed
may be made : he shall die before the morrow,
D, F, J ; let not his wife know, F, G. The
wife asks why the men-servants, coachmen,
are weeping, and is told that they have
drowned [lost] some of the horses. C-J, M
[have burned the king's carriage, K], We
will get others when the king comes, she an-
swers, C. D. H [when I get lip, F, as in Breton
A], Why are the maids weeping ? The
maids have lost sheets or towels in washing,
F. I. K : have scorched the shirts in ironing,
C, D. H. When the king comes, he will buy
or bring better, C, D. H [when I get up, F, as
in Breton A], Why are the priests chanting'.'
For a great feast to-morrow, F. Winare
the carpenters at work ? They are making
a cradle for your boy, C-E, H-K. Why
do the bells ring ? A great lord is dead ; in
honor of somebody or something ; C, E-L.
Why does not Anzolin come to see me ? He
has gone a-hunting, G, L. What dress shall
I put on to go to church '! [When I get up
I shall put on red, F, I.] You in black and
I in gray, as in our country is the way, C-F,
H. I [H moda a Paris, by corruption of del
pais] ; I white, you gray, J you will look well
;
in black, M put ; on red, or put on white, or
put on black for custom"s sake, G.
The children in the street say. That is the
wife of the lord who was buried, or the peo-
ple look at the lady in a marked way, C, J, G,
M; and why is this? For the last time the
mother-in-law puts off the question. At the
church, under the family bench, there is a
grave new made, and now it has to be said
that the husband is buried there. C-K, M.
A conclusion is wanting in half of the bal-
lads, and what there is is corrupted in others.
The widow commends her boy to her hus-
* The ballad of ' Luggieri,' published by Salvatori in the
Bassegna Settimanale, Rome, June 22, L879, and reprinted
by Nigra in Romania, XI. 391 (a variety of
CLERK COLVILL 383
' liizzardo
bello,' Wolf, Volkslieder aus Venetian, p. 62, No 83 i. appears
band's mother, G. M. and says she will die
with her dear one, D, E, J, M. In C, as in
French V, she wishes to speak to her hus-
band. If tin- dead ever spake to the quick,
sin- would speak once to her dear Liiis ; if the
quick ever spake to the dead, she would speak
once to her dear husband. In G she bids the
grave unlock, that she may come into the
arms of her beloved, and then bids it close,
that in his arms she may stay : cf. French Y,
Q, X. R, AA.
The story of the Italian ballad, under the
title of 'II Conte Angiolino,' was given in
epitome by Luigi Carrer, in his Prose e Poesie,
Venice, 1838, IV, 81 f, before any copy
had been published (omitted in later editions).
According to Carrer's version, the lady, hear-
ing bells, and seeing from her windows the
church lighted up as for some office, extracts
the fact from her mother-in-law on the spot,
and then, going to the church and seeing her
husband's tomb, prays that it would open and
receive her.
A fragment of an Italian ballad given by
Nigra, Romania, XI, 396, No 8, describes
three card players, quarrelling over their game,
as passing from words to knives, and from
knives to pistols, and one of the party, the
king of Spain, as being wounded in the fray.
He rides home with a depressed air, and asks
his mother to make his bed, for he shall be
dead at midnight and his horse at dawn.
There is a confusion of two stories here, as
will be seen from Spanish ballads which are
to be spoken of. Botli stories are mixed with
the original adventure of the mermaid in ' II
Cavaliere della bella spada,' already referred
to as B. In this last the knight has a hundred
and fifty stabs, and his horse ninety.*
Nigra has added to the valuable and beau-
tiful ballads furnished to Romania. XI, a tale
(p. 398) from the province of Turin, which
preserves the earlier portion of the Breton
story. A hunter comes upon a beautiful
woman under a rock. She requires him to
to me not to belong with ' Renatid,' hut with the class of
' Tin- Cruel Brother,' as already remarked of the Venetian
ballad at p. 142.