And while against the tide and wind
Hans stoutly row'd his way,
The noble to his follower sign'd
He should the boatman slay.

The fisher's back was to them turn'd,
The squire his dagger drew,
Hans saw his shadow in the lake,
The boat he overthrew.

He 'whelm'd the boat, and as they strove, He stunn'd them with his oar, "Now, drink ye deep, my gentle sirs, You'll ne'er stab boatman more.

"Two gilded fishes in the lake

This morning have I caught, Their silver scales may much avail, Their carrion flesh is naught."

It was a messenger of woe

Has sought the Austrian land:

"Ah! gracious lady, evil news! My lord lies on the strand.

"At Sempach, on the battle-field,
His bloody corpse lies there."-
"Ah, gracious God!" the lady cried,
"What tidings of despair!"

Now would you know the minstrel wight,

Who sings of strife so stern, Albert the Souter is he hight, A burgher of Lucerne.

A merry man was he, I wot,
The night he made the lay,
Returning from the bloody spot,

Where God had judged the day.

THE NOBLE MORINGER.

AN ANCIENT BALLAD.

TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN.

[1819.1]

THE original of these verses occurs in a collection of German popular songs, entitled Sammlung Deutschen Volkslieder, Berlin, 1807, published by Messrs. Busching and Von der Hagen, both, and more especially the last, distinguished for their acquaintance with the ancient popular poetry and legendary history of Germany.

In the German Editor's notice of the ballad, it is stated to have been extracted from a manuscript Chronicle of Nicolaus Thomann, chaplain to Saint Leonard in Weisenhorn, which bears the date 1533; and the song is stated by the author to have been generally sung in the neighbourhood at that early

1 The translation of the Noble Moringer appeared originally in the Edinburgh Annual Register for 1816 (published in 1819). It was composed during Sir Walter Scott's severe and alarming illness of April, 1819, and dictated, in the intervals of exquisite pain, to his daughter Sophia, and his friend William Laidlaw. -ED.

period. Thomann, as quoted by the German Editor, seems faithfully to have believed the event he narrates. He quotes tombstones and obituaries to prove the existence of the personages of the ballad, and discovers that there actually died, on the 11th May, 1349, a Lady Von Neuffen, Countess of Marstetten, who was by birth of the house of Moringer. This lady he supposes to have been Moringer's daughter, mentioned in the ballad. He quotes the same authority for the death of Berckhold Von Neuffen in the same year. The editors, on the whole, seem to embrace the opinion of Professor Smith of Ulm, who, from the language of the ballad, ascribes its date to the 15th century.

The legend itself turns on an incident not peculiar to Germany, and which, perhaps, was not unlikely to happen in more instances than one, when crusaders abode long in the Holy Land, and their disconsolate dames received no tidings of their fate. A story very similar in circumstances, but without the miraculous machinery of Saint Thomas, is told of one of the ancient Lords of Haigh-hall in Lancashire, the patrimonial inheritance of the late Countess of Balcarras; and the particulars are represented on stained glass upon a window in that ancient manor-house.1

1 See Introduction to The Betrothed, Waverley Novels.

THE NOBLE MORINGER.

I.

O, WILL you hear a knightly tale of old Bohemian

day,

It was the noble Moringer in wedlock bed he lay; He halsed and kiss'd his dearest dame, that was as sweet as May,

And said, "Now, lady of my heart, attend the words

I say.

II.

""Tis I have vow'd a pilgrimage unto a distant

shrine,

And I must seek Saint Thomas-land, and leave the land that's mine;

Here shalt thou dwell the while in state, so thou wilt pledge thy fay,

That thou for my return wilt wait seven twelvemonths and a day."

III.

Then out and spoke that Lady bright, sore troubled

in her cheer,

"Now tell me true, thou noble knight, what order

takest thou here;