"And as thou love her and hold her deare,

Heaven prosper thee and thine;

And nowe my blessing wend wi' thee,
My lovelye Emmeline."

200

SIR ALDINGAR.

Of this very remarkable ballad two copies have been printed in English, Sir Aldingar, from the Percy MS. (Reliques, ii. 53), “with conjectural emendations and the insertion of some additional stanzas,” and Sir Hugh Le Blond, by Scott, from recitation. The corresponding Danish ballad, Ravengaard og Memering, first published by Grundtvig, is extant in not less than five copies, the oldest derived from a MS. of the middle of the 16th century, the others from recent recitations. With these Grundtvig has given an Icelandic version, from a MS. of the 17th century, another in the dialect of the Faroe Islands, and a third half Danish, half Faroish, both as still sung by the people. The ballad was also preserved, not long ago, in Norway. - Danmarks Gamle Folkeviser, i. 177-213, ii. 640-645.

All these ballads contain a story one and the same in the essential features a story which occurs repeatedly in connection with historical personages, in Germany, France, Italy, and Spain, as well as England, — and which has also furnished the theme for various modern romances, poems, and tragedies.

The connection of the different forms of the legend has been investigated by the Danish editor at considerable length and with signal ability; and we shall endeavor to present the principal results of his wide research in the few pages which our narrow limits allow us to give to such questions.

The names of the characters in the Danish ballads are Henry (called Duke of Brunswick and of Schleswig in the oldest), Gunild (of Spires, called also Gunder), Ravengaard, and Memering. To these correspond, in the English story, King Henry, Queen Eleanor, Sir Aldingar (the resemblance of this name to Ravengaard will be noted), and a boy, to whom no name is assigned. Eleanor, it hardly need be remarked, is a queen's name somewhat freely used in ballads (see vol. vi. 209, and vol. vii. 291), and it is possible that the consort of Henry II. is here intended, though her reputation both in history and in song hardly favors that supposition.

The occurrence of Spires in the old Danish ballad would naturally induce us to look for the origin of the story in the annals of the German emperors of the Franconian line, who held their court at Spires, and are most of them buried in the cathedral at that place. A very promising clue is immediately found in the history of King (afterwards Emperor) Henry III., son of the Emperor Conrad II. Salicus. This Henry was married, in the year 1036, to Gunhild, daughter of Canute the Great. An English chronicler, William of Malmesbury, writing in the first half of the 12th century, tells us that after this princess had lived many years in honorable wedlock, she was accused of adultery. Being forced to clear herself by wager of battle,

she found in all her retinue no one who was willing to risk a combat with her accuser, a man of gigantic stature, save a little boy whom she had brought with her from England. The issue of the duel established her innocence, her diminutive champion succeeding by some miracle in ham-stringing his huge adversary; but it is alleged that the queen refused to return to her husband, and passed the rest of a long life in a monastery.*

A Norman-French Life of Edward the Confessor, written about 1250, repeats this story, and adds the champion's name.†

"A daughter had the king,

Who was not so beautiful as clever.
Gunnild her name; and he gave her

To him who with love had asked for her,

The noble Emperor Henry.

She remained not long with him,

Because by felons, who had no reason

To blame her calumniously,

She was charged with shame:

To the Emperor was she accused.

According to the custom of the empire,

*"Although there are seven centuries between William and our times," says Grundtvig, "and the North Sea between Jutland and the land of his birth, it almost seems as if he had taken his account from the very ballad which is at this day sung on the little island of Fuur in the Lym Fiord."

† We have substituted this paragraph instead of a later chronicle cited by Grundtvig. The translation is that of the English editor: Lives of Edward the Confessor (p. 39, 193), recently published by authority of the British govern

ment.

It behoved her to clear herself from shame
By battle; and she takes much trouble

To find one to be her champion:

But finds no one, for very huge was
The accuser, - as a giant.

But a dwarf, whom she had brought up,
Undertook the fight with him.

At the first blow he hamstrung him;
At the second he cut off his feet.
Mimecan was the dwarf's name,
Who was so good a champion,
As the history, which is written,

Says of him. The lady was freed from blame,
But the lady the emperor

No more will have as her lord."

Finally, John Brompton, writing two hundred years after William of Malmesbury, repeats his account, and gives the names of both the combatants, "a youth called Mimicon, and a man of gigantic size, by name Roddyngar” (Raadengard the Danish

Ravengaard).

The story of William of Malmesbury and the rest, though it is sufficiently in accordance with the Danish and English ballads, is in direct opposition to the testimony of contemporary German chroniclers, who represent Queen Gunhild as living on the best terms with her husband, and instead of growing old in God's service in a nunnery, as dying of the plague in Italy two years after her marriage, and hardly twenty years of age. It is manifest, therefore, that the English chroniclers derived their accounts from ballads current at their day,* which, as they were not founded on any

*William of Malmesbury refers to ballads which were