Popular Rhymes and Nursery Tales Part 14

_The Ring._

But now I've speir'd that your father's dead, Fair Gundela!

_Gundela._

What matters my father? My mother lives still.

Ah, thank heaven for that!

_The Ring._

But now I've speir'd that your mother's dead, Fair Gundela!

_Gundela._

What matters my mother? My brother lives still.

Ah, thank heaven for that!

_The Ring._

But now I've speir'd that your brother's dead, Fair Gundela!

_Gundela._

What matters my brother? My sister lives still.

Ah, thank heaven for that!

_The Ring._

But now I've speir'd that your sister's dead, Fair Gundela!

_Gundela._

What matters my sister? My sweetheart lives still.

Ah, thank heaven for that!

_The Ring._

But now I've speir'd that your sweetheart's dead, Fair Gundela!

[_Here she sinks down overwhelmed with grief._]

_Gundela._

Say! can it be true, Which ye tell now to me, That my sweetheart's no more?

Ah, G.o.d pity me!

_The Ring._

But now I've speir'd that your father lives still, Fair Gundela!

_Gundela._

What matters my father? My sweetheart's no more!

Ah, G.o.d pity me!

_The Ring._

But now I've speir'd that you mother lives still, Fair Gundela!

_Gundela._

What matters my mother? My sweetheart's no more!

Ah, G.o.d pity me!

_The Ring._

But now I've speir'd that your brother lives still, Fair Gundela!

_Gundela._

What matters my brother? My sweetheart's no more!

Ah, G.o.d pity me!

_The Ring._

But now I've speir'd that your sister lives still, Fair Gundela!

_Gundela._

What matters my sister? My sweetheart's no more!

Ah, G.o.d pity me!

_The Ring._

But now I've speir'd that your sweetheart lives still, Fair Gundela!

_Gundela._

Say! can it be true Which ye tell now to me, That my sweetheart lives still?

Thank G.o.d, thank G.o.d for that!

The veil is thrown on one side, her face beams with joy, the circle is broken, and the juvenile drama concludes with merriment and noise. It is difficult to say whether this is the real prototype of the English game, or whether they are both indebted to a still more primitive original.

There is a poetical sweetness and absolute dramatic fervour in the Swedish ballad we vainly try to discover in the English version. In the latter, all is vulgar, common-place, and phlegmatic. Cannot we trace in both the national character? Do we not see in the last that poetic simplicity which has made the works of Andersen so popular and irresistibly charming? It may be that the style pleases by contrast, and that we appreciate its genuine chasteness the more, because we have nothing similar to it in our own vernacular literature.

MY DAUGHTER JANE.

Eccleshall version, played as a game by the schoolgirls. See the Nursery Rhymes of England, p. 114.