With thy young bride so wan and pale
O why then is thy bride so pale ?
And why too are her looks cast down,
As if with child she had been gone?"
"Now mother hold thy tongue, I pray,
And speak not in this cruel way;
It is no child that makes her pale,
She has receiv'd a deadly wound."-

This tragic wedding, the death of the bride, the slaughter of Earl Frederick by her father, and the roses and lilies that grew out of the graves of the two lovers, form a popular subject with the peasantry in different parts of Germany, and many various versions of the ballad are current.

The celebrated ballad of Leonora, by Bürger, has sometimes been traced to the English ballad, called, "the Suffolk Miracle; or a relation of a young man, who, a month after his death, appeared to his sweetheart, and carried her on horseback, behind him, for forty miles, in two hours, and was never seen after but in his grave;" but Dr. Althof, the intimate friend and biographer of Bürger, has satisfactorily shown that he could not possibly have been acquainted with the English ballad, as it is not to be found in the Göttingen library, the only place where Bürger could have seen it and he has pointed out at the same time the true source of the German composition.-Bürger, one moonlight night, heard a peasant girl sing an old German song, of which three lines remained engraven on his memory; but, notwithstanding all his efforts, he was unable afterwards to obtain any trace of it. There is a complete copy of this curious ditty in the Wunderhorn,-of which the following is a close translation:

Yonder, in Hungary Land,
A little house have I,
Thither my way doth lie!
Upon a wide spread heath,
My house is ready made,
For me and for my bride.
Let me no longer stay!
Come quick my love, come, come,
And let us to our home.

The little stars us light,

The moon it shines so bright,
How quickly ride the dead!
Now whither wilt thou take me,
O God what can'st thou mean,
All in the darksome night!
With thee I cannot ride,
Thy little bed's too strait,
And too far is the gait.
O come and lay thee down,
Sleep, my love, sleep away,
Until the judgment day.

There is an old Norse ballad, bearing a close resemblance to the above, from which Oehlenschlager, in his Palnatoke, has taken the following three lines:

The moon it shines, The dead man grins,

O be thou not so red!

Some curious German ballads have been preserved by John Henry Jung, who was born in 1740,-a man of a very singular character, who gave to the world an account of his own remarkable life, under the title of Henry Stilling's Biography. This individual was intended to be a charcoal burner, but chose rather to be a tailor. Having a strong love of knowledge, he instructed himself in his hours of leisure, and became candidate for the place of preceptor of a school. Failing in his attempt, he was obliged to return to his trade, from which, however, he was occasionally called to act as a private teacher in families. He became afterwards a physician, and professor, and died a privy councellor of Baden !-He was a man of a most amiable and sincere character; and his account of his own life is supposed to be one of the most veridical works of the kind ever composed. His piety was of a fervent, but at the same time of a visionary cast. He believed in the intercourse of departed spirits with the living, and his peculiar doctrines on this subject were espoused by many people in different parts of Germany.

The following ballad, among others,

is given by Jung, in his biography. A peasant, he says, told him the following story respecting it:

"A little down there, you see the castle of Geisenberg; straight behind it there is a high mountain, with three heads, of

which the middle one is still called the Kindelsberg. There, in old times, stood a castle of that name, in which dwelt knights who were very ungodly people.God became, at length, weary of them; and there arrived late, one evening, a white little man at the castle, who announced to them that they should all die within three days: as a sign, he told them that the same night on which he spake, a cow would produce two lambs. This accordingly happened; but no one minded the prophecy, except the youngest son, the knight Siegmund, and a daughter, who was a very beautiful maiden: these two prayed day and night. The others all died of the plague, and these two were saved. Now here, on the Geisenberg, there was also a bold young knight, who constantly rode a large black horse; on which account he was always called the knight with the black horse. He was a wicked man, who was always robbing and murdering. This knight fell in love with the maiden, on the Kindelsberg, and was determined to have her; but the thing had a bad ending; I know an old song on this story. (Here he sung the song.) The affecting melody, (continues Jung) and the story itself, produced such an effect on Stilling, (Jung) that he often visited the old peasant, who sung the song to him, till he got it by heart."'

At Kindelsberg, on the castle high,
An antient lime-tree grows,
With goodly branches, wide outspread,
Which rave as the wild wind blows.

There stands a stem, both broad and tall,
Quite close this lime-tree behind;
It is grey, and rough all over with moss,
And it shakes not in the wind.

There sleeps a maiden the mournful sleep,
Who to her knight was true;-
He was a noble count of the Mark,
Her case she well might rue.-

With her brother to a distant land
To a knight's feud he did repair;
He gave to the maiden the iron hand,

They parted with many a tear:
The time was now long past and gone,
The Count he came not again!
By the lime-tree foot she sat her down,

To give vent to her sorrow and pain.
And there to her another knight came;
A coal-black steed he was on,
Unto the maiden he kindly spoke,
And sought her heart to win.

4

The maiden said, "thou shalst, I vow,
Me for thy wife ne'er have ;-
When the lime-tree here shall wither'd
stand,

My heart to thee will I give!"

The lime-tree still was high and young,
Up-hill, and down he passed,

In search of a lime so large and so high,
Till he found it at the last :

Then out he went, in the moonshine bright,
And dug up the lime-tree so green,
And set the wither'd tree in its stead,
And the turf laid down again.

The maiden up in the morning rose,
The lime-tree shade no more on it played;
Her window was so light;
She was seized with grief and afright !—
The maiden to the lime-tree run,

Sat down with sorrow and pain,
The knight he came, in haughty mood,
And sought her heart again :-

The maiden answer'd, in distress,
"Thou'lt ne'er be loved by me.'
The proud knight then he stabbed her dead.
The Count grieved piteously!—
For he came home that very day,

And saw, in sorrowful mood,
How by the wither'd lime-tree lay
The maiden in her blood!
And then a deep grave did he dig,

For a bed of rest for his bride,
And he sought for a lime up-hill and down,
And he placed it by her side.

And a great stone he also placed,

Which by the wind cannot shaken be ;— There sleeps the maiden in peaceful rest, In the shade of the green lime tree.

The following passage is closely translated from the ballad of Maria and the Knight St. George, in a collection of old popular songs, in the dialect of the Kuhländchen," published in 1817.

It's up in the mountain, the wind it doth

Kyri-eleeison :

If better to preach he were only inclined; Kyrieleeison:

With his cook maid he does better as well you do know;

Juch Juch he, Kyri Kyrie— Glory be to Krispel and to Salome!

The following is also from the same collection. The Death of Basle," has reference to a painting of death, by Holbein, at the church of Basle.

When I a blithe young fellow was,

1 married an old wife;

But ere three days were past and gone,
I led a weary life.

I hied me then to the church yard,
And unto death did pray,

O kind good death of Basle,
Take my old wife away:

And when back to the house I came,
Dead there my old wife lay;

I to the waggon yoked the horse,

And drove my wife away.

And when I to the church yard came,
The grave was ready made;

O softly tread ye benrers,
Least my old wife awake!

Come shovel, shovel, shovel up,

My old and wicked wife; For while she lived I wot she was, The plague of my young life!

Having deposited his old wife in the earth, he hastens home and gets a young one, who beats him from morning to night, and soon makes him regret her predecessor.

The Danes have the richest collection of old ballads of all the Teutonic nations. These ballads, long known under the name of the Kimpe Viser, were, to the number of one hundred, first printed by Anders Sorensön Vedel, in 1591, at the request of the Queen of Denmark. Others were added in subsequent editions, of which several appeared, both in Denmark and Norway.

A volume of Tragica, or old Danish historical Love Songs, was published in 1657 ; and a hundred ballads collection, in 1695. A New Edition, were added, by Peter Syv, to Vedel's enriched by several ballads from old manuscript collections, of which, to the honour of the fair sex, there had been many made in former days in Denmark, has lately been published in Copenhagen, with the old tunes to which they were sung. This curious collection of ballads, in a language so very like the north country English, ought to be in the hands of every amateur of this species of literature. It is divided into ballads relating to the old mythical period,supernatural and miraculous ballads,

historical ballads,-and fictitious ballads. With respect to their age, it cannot be exactly determined; but it has been affirmed, by good judges, that, with the exception of five, in the historical class, all the rest are the composition of the 13th, 14th, and 15th centuries. The subjects to which the historical ballads relate, are many of them of a very ancient date; the language is often full of archaisms not to be found in the monuments even of the 15th century; and several of them are referred to by name in the old Chronicles.

Some of these ballads have been introduced with considerable effect, by Oehlenschläger, in his Dramas. In his Tragedy of Axel and Valborg, which is itself founded on a popular ballad, he introduces that of the

Knight Aage in the following man

ner

Valborg. My Axel oft has told me with what skill

You touch the harp

William. Oft times its tones Have soothed my troubled senses to repose: Valborg. Well then, dear William, seat thee in that nook,

Where, by my mother's grave a harp is hung.

How many a sleepless night has Valborg's voice

Accompanied its tones among these graves! How many a time with it has she begun The song of the Knight Aage! Never sung She it to end; her feeble voice was drowned By scalding tears; but you, my noble William,

Received, from God a nature more robust:

Take you the golden harp, and seat your

self

Down by the Royal pillar, facing Axel, And sing, with tuneful string, your song to end,

Whilst Valborg kneels beside her Axel's

corse

And do not, prithee, rise till all is o'erTill Else has her Aage joined in death.

It was the Knight Sir Aage,
He to the island rode;
He betrothed Lady Else,
She was so fair a maid;

He betrothed Lady Else,

All with the gold so red, But on the Monday after He in the earth was laid;

It was the Lady Else,

And she did wail and weep, The Knight, Sir Aage heard her, Under the earth so deep;

Uprose the Knight, Sir Aage,

Took his coffin up behind,"
And hied him to her chamber door,
His Lady fair to find:

With the coffin he knock'd upon the door,
Because he had no skin,

"O rise up Lady Else

And let thy Aage in!"

Then answered Lady Else,
"I will not ope my door,

Till thou repeat Christ Jesus' name,
As thou couldst do before!"

"O rise up little Else,

And open thou thy door;

I can the name of Jesus name,

As I could do before."

Then up rose the proud Else, The tears fast down did flow, And in she let dear Aage,

For whom she felt such woe;

And then she took her golden comb,
Wherewith she combed his hair,
And for every hair she redded,

She dropt a bitter tear.
"Now, hear ye Knight, Sir Aage,
My dearest love, O say,

How was it under the black earth
In the grave where you lay."
"Every time thou merry art,
And in thy mind art glad,
Then pleasant is my grave to me,

All round with rose leaves clad;

"But every time thou grievest, And in thy mind art sad, My coffin then it seems to be

All filled with clotted blood.

"But now the red cock croweth,

I can no longer stay,
To earth now hurry all the dead,
And I must take the way.

"And now the black cock croweth,
To earth must I descend,
The gates of heaven wide open are,
And I must quickly wend!"
Upstood the Knight, Sir Aage,
Took his coffin up behind,
And dragged it on to the church yard,
Painful he did it find ;-

And now the Lady Else,

Her heart it was right sad, She went on with her Aage,

All through the darksome wood; She went with him all through the wood, And into the church yard, And then the Knight, Sir Aage,

Lost the hue of his yellow hair;

And as he came to leave the yard,
And into the church sped,
O there the Knight, Sir Aage,

Lost the hue of his cheeks so red; "Now hear thou little Else proud

Hear me my dearest dear,
See that thou never more do weep,
For thy betrothed here;

And cast thine eye to heaven up,
And little stars aboon,

And thou wilt thereby come to know,
How the night passeth on."

She cast her eye to heaven up

And to each little star;

Into the earth the dead man slipped,
She never saw him more!