temptation in
the sweet French folk-song; as the "bird that came out of a bush, on water
for to dine," in the _Water o' Wearies Well_.

In the matter of identity of plot and incident in the ballads of various
lands, it is to be regretted that no such comparative tables exist as Von
Hahn tried, not very exhaustively, to make of the "story-roots" of
_Maerchen_. Such tables might be compiled from the learned notes and
introductions of Prof. Child to his _English and Scottish Popular Ballads_
(1898). A common plot is the story of the faithful leman, whose lord brings
home "a braw new bride," and who recovers his affection at the eleventh
hour. In Scotland this is the ballad of Lord Thomas and Fair Annie; in
Danish it is Skiaen Anna. It occurs twice in M. Fauriel's collection of
Romaic songs. Again, there is the familiar ballad about a girl who pretends
to be dead, that she may be borne on a bier to meet her lover. This occurs
not only in Scotland, but in the popular songs of Provence (collected by
Damase Arbaud) and in those of Metz (Puymaigre), and in both countries an
incongruous sequel tells how the lover tried to murder his bride, and how
she was too cunning, and drowned him. Another familiar feature is the bush
and briar, or the two rose trees, which meet and plait over the graves of
unhappy lovers, so that all passers-by see them, and say in the
Provencal,--

"Diou ague l'amo
Des paures amourous."

Another example of a very widespread theme brings us to the ideas of the
state of the dead revealed in folk-songs. _The Night Journey_, in M.
Fauriel's Romaic collection, tells how a dead brother, wakened from his
sleep of death by the longing of love, bore his living sister on his
saddle-bow, in one night, from Bagdad to Constantinople. In Scotland this
is the story of Proud Lady Margaret; in Germany it is the song which
Buerger converted into Lenore; in Denmark it is Aage und Else; in Brittany
the dead foster-brother carries his sister to the apple close of the Celtic
paradise (_Barzaz Breiz_). Only in Brittany do the sad-hearted people think
of the land of death as an island of Avalon, with the eternal sunset
lingering behind the flowering apple trees, and gleaming on the fountain of
forgetfulness. In Scotland the channering worm doth chide even the souls
that come from where, "beside the gate of Paradise, the birk grows fair
enough." The Romaic idea of the place of the dead, the garden of Charon,
whence "neither