The Maiden in Bird's Plumage
(Nilus Erlandson)
Words Traditional Denmark/ music © Gordon Bok, BMI
From A Book of Danish Ballades (Princeton University Press, 1939), translated by E.M. smith-Dampier. A friend loaned me this book. In the introduction, it says that by the 15th century these ballads were often combined with dances. Quite often they had a burden which the dancers would sing with every verse (like "So the knight hath won his lady"). These ballads wandered back and forth between countries, so they might well have existed in many languages at once.
Gordon – Spanish guitar
It was Nilus Erlandson
Rode forth the deer to take
And there he saw the lily-white hind
That ran through bush and brake
(So the knight hath won his lady)
He chased her, Nilus Erlandson
That longed for her so sore
But swift was she, and still did flee
For three days' space, and more
Now snares he set in every path
Where'er a beast might go
But all so wise was the lily-white hind
That he could not take her so
Sir Nilus all through the greenwood
Rode on, and rode in vain
His hounds loosed he by two, by three
To run her down amain
Now can she spy no way to fly
So hot the hounds pursue
Her shape she changed to a falcon fierce
And aloft in the air she flew
Her shape she changed to a falcon fleet
And perched on a linden green
All under the boughs Sir Nilus stood
And sighed for toil and tene
Sir Nilus hath ta'en his ase in hand
To fell the linden-tree
When forth there sprang a forester
That smote the shaft in three
"And wilt though fell my father's wood
And all to do me wrong
I promise thee, Nilus Erlandson
That thou shalt rue it long!"
"Now let me fell this single tree
This tree alone of thine
For but I can take the falcon fell
I die of dule and pine!"
"Now hark and heed, thou fair young knight
The counsel that I bring
Ne'er shalt thou take her til she taste
The flesh of a tamed thing!"
A gobbet he cut from his bleeding breast
Right bitter pain he knew
She flapped her wings and down she dropped
And on the bait she flew
She flapped her wings and down she flew
And on the bait she fell
And she changed her shape to the fairest maid
That ever a tongue might tell
She stood in a sark of silk so red
Where the linden-tree did blow
And all in the arms of Sir Nilus
She told her tale of woe
"Oh I sat and broidered lily and rose
My father's board beside
When in she came, my false stepdame
Whose wrath was ill to bide
"She shaped me all to a lily-white hind
To run in wild greenwood
And seven maidens to seven grey wolves
And bade them drink my blood"
The damsel stood 'neath the linden-tree
And loosened her golden hair
And thither came they that erst were wolves
But now were maidens fair
"Now thanks to thee, Nilus Erlandson!
Hast saved me from hurt and harm
Never shalt thou seek slumber
But on my lily-white arm
"Now thanks to thee, Nilus Erlandson
Hast set my sorrow to rest!
Never shalt thou seek slumber
But on my lily-white breast"