The Verner Raven, The Count of Vendel's Daughter, and Other Ballads

There me for winter one she nurs’d —
She nursed me for two winters’ space.
To creep, to creep, I learnt at first,
And next I learnt to pace, to pace.

And I was full eight years, I wot,
Within the quiet, green retreat.
Close couched beside the hind I got
Full many a slumber calm and sweet.

I had clothes and shelter of no kind,
Except the linden green alone;
And, save the gentle forest hind,
Had nurse and foster-mother none.

But forth on courser reeking hot
There rushed a knight of bearing bold,
And he my foster-mother shot
With arrow on the verdant wold.

He pierced the hind with mortal wound,
And all our fond connection cut;
Then wrapped his cloak my frame around,
And me within his buckler put.

That self-same knight, so bold and strong,
Within his bower the foundling bred;
He tended me both well and long,
And finally his bride he made.

He had by long inquiry found
My father was a noble count
In Vendel’s land, who castles own’d,
And rul’d o’er many a plain and mount.

The first night we together slept
Was fraught with woe of darkest hue;
Foes, whom he long at bay had kept,
Broke in on us, and him they slew.

The night we lay together first
A deed of horror was fulfill’d;
The bride-house door his foemen burst,
And in my arms my husband kill’d.

Soon, soon, my friends to counsel go,
A husband new they chose for me;
The cloister’s prior of mitred brow —
The good Sir Nilaus styl’d was he.

But soon as I the threshold cross’d,
The nuns could not their fury smother;
They vow’d by God and all His Host,
The Prior Nilaus was my brother.

Forth from the cloister him they drew,
They pelted him to death with stones;
I stood close by, and all could view,
I scarce could hear his piteous moans.

Once more my friends to counsel hied,
For me another spouse they get —
Son of the King of England wide
Was he, and hight Sir Engelbret.

Nine winters with that princely youth
I lived; of joy we had no dearth,
I tell to ye, for sooth and truth,
To ten fair sons that I gave birth.

But pirate crews the land beset,
No one, no one, my grief could tell;
They slew with sword Sir Engelbret,
And nine of my fair sons as well.

My husband and my sons with brand
They slew.  How I bewail their case!
My tenth son here they from the land —
I never more shall see his face.

Now is my care as complicate
As golden threads which maidens spin;
God crown with bliss Sir Engelbret,
He ever was so free from sin.

But now I’ll take the holy vows,
Within the cloister under Ey;
I’ll ne’er become another’s spouse,
But in religion I will die.

But first to all the country side
I will declare my bosom’s grief;
I find, the more my grief I hide,
The less, the less, is my relief.

THE CRUEL MOTHER-IN-LAW

From his home and his country Sir Volmor should fare,
His wife he commends to his mother’s best care.