Up Urgan starts, that hideous dwarf,
Before Lord Richard stands,

And, as he cross'd and bless'd himself,
"I fear not sign," quoth the grisly elf,
“That is made with bloody hands.”

But out then spoke she, Alice Brand,
That woman void of fear, -
"And if there's blood upon his hand,
'Tis but the blood of deer."

"Now loud thou liest, thou bold of mood!

It cleaves unto his hand,

The stain of thine own kindly blood,

The blood of Ethert Brand."

Then forward stepp'd she, Alice Brand,
And made the holy sign,

"And if there's blood on Richard's hand,
A spotless hand is mine.

"And I conjure thee, Demon elf,

By Him whom Demons fear,
To show us whence thou art thyself,
And what thine errand here?"

Dudmond, pastor of the parish of Garpsdale, in Iceland, a man profoundly versed in learning, from whose manuscript it was extracted by the learned Torfæus.— Historia Hrolfi Krakii, Hafnia, 1715, prefatio.

XV.

BALLAD CONTINUED.

"'Tis merry, 'tis merry, in Fairy-land,
When fairy birds are singing,

When the court doth ride by their monarch's side,
With bit and bridle ringing:

"And gaily shines the Fairy-land –

But all is glistening show,1

Like the idle gleam that December's beam

Can dart on ice and snow.

"And fading, like that varied gleam,
Is our inconstant shape,

Who now like knight and lady seen,
And now like dwarf and ape.

"It was between the night and day,
When the Fairy King has power,

That I sunk down in a sinful fray,
And, 'twixt life and death, was snatch'd away
To the joyless Elfin bower.2

1 See Appendix, Note M.

2 The subjects of Fairy-land were recruited from the regions ' of humanity by a sort of crimping system, which extended to adults as well as to infants. Many of those who were in this world supposed to have discharged the debt of nature, had only become denizens of the "Londe of Faery." In the beautiful Fairy Romance of Orfee and Heurodiis (Orpheus and Eurydice) in the Auchinleck MS., is the following strik

"But wist I of a woman bold
Who thrice my brow durst sign,
I might regain my mortal mold,
As fair a form as thine."

She cross'd him once- - she cross'd him twice

That lady was so brave;

The fouler grew his goblin hue,

The darker grew the cave.

She cross'd him thrice, that lady bold;

He rose beneath her hand

The fairest knight on Scottish mold,

Her brother, Ethert Brand!

ing enumeration of persons thus abstracted from middle earth. Mr. Ritson unfortunately published this romance from a copy in which the following, and many other highly poetical passages do not occur:

"Then he gan biholde about al,

And seighe ful liggeand with in the wal,

Of folk that were thidder y-brought,

And thought dede and nere nought;

Some stode with outen hadde;

And sum none armes nade;

And sum thurch the bodi hadde wounde;

And sum lay wode y-bounde;

And some armed on hors sete;

And sum astrangled as thai ete;

And sum war in water adreynt;
And sum with fire al forschreynt;
Wives ther lay on childe bedde;
Sum dede, and sum awedde;
And wonder fele ther lay besides,
Right as thai slepe her undertides;
Eche was thus in the warld y-nome
With fairi thider y-come."