The Project Gutenberg eBook, Ellen of Villenskov, by Anonymous, Edited by
Thomas J. Wise, Translated by George Borrow

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Title: Ellen of Villenskov
and Other Ballads

Author: Anonymous

Editor: Thomas J. Wise

Release Date: May 12, 2009 [eBook #28772]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ELLEN OF VILLENSKOV***

Transcribed from the 1913 Thomas J. Wise pamphlet by David Price, email
ccx074@pglaf.org. Many thanks to Norfolk and Norwich Millennium Library,
UK, for kindly supplying the images from which this transcription was
made.

ELLEN OF VILLENSKOV
AND OTHER BALLADS

BY
GEORGE BORROW

LONDON:
PRINTED FOR PRIVATE CIRCULATION
1913

ELLEN OF VILLENSKOV.

There lies a wold in Vester Haf,
There builds a boor his hold;
And thither he carries hawk and hound,
He'll stay through winter's cold.

He takes with him both hound and cock,
He means there long to stay;
The wild deer in the wood that are
For his arrival pay.

He hews the oak and poplar tall,
He fells the good beech tree;
Then fill'd was the laidly Trold with spite
That he should make so free.

He hews him posts, he hews him balks,
He early toils and late;
Out spake the Trolds within the hill:
"Who knocks at such a rate?"

Then up and spake the youngest Trold,
As emmet small to view:
"O here is come a Christian man,
But verily he shall rue."

Upstood the smallest of the Trolds,
And round he roll'd his eyes:
"O we will hie to the yeoman's house,
And o'er him hold assize.

"He hews away our sheltering wood,
Meanwhile shall we be tame?
No! I from him his wife will take,
And make him suffer shame."

All the Trolds in the hill that were
Wild for the fray upbound;
They hie away to the yeoman's house,
Their tails all curling round.

Seven and a hundred were the Trolds,
Their laidliness was great;
To the yeoman's house they'l