From Notes and Queries, 4th Series, Vol. 1, No. 13, March 28, 1868:

CONTRIBUTIONS FROM FOREIGN BALLAD LITERATURE.

SIR OLAF AND THE FAIRY DANCE.

Absence from England prevents my knowing whether "Sir Olaf" has appeared in any recent ballad-book. I only know one translation—that in the Tales of Terror* I think it purports to be from the German, but I have not the book at hand. The commencement was truly ludicrous—

"O'er moorlands and mountains, Sir Olaf he wends,
To bid to his wedding relations and friends!"

This may be in accordance with some German version; it certainly is not with any Swedish, Danish, or Norse one! The following is from a common Swedish song-book lent to me by a Swedish lady at Lausanne. There is a resemblance between some verses of "Sir Olaf" and certain stanzas in the "Ballad of Renaud" (3rd S. iv. 221). Compare the 7th stanza of "Renaud" with the llth of "Sir Olaf"; also the 16th of "Renaud" with the 12th and 13th of "Sir Olaf." While on the subject of resemblances, I may observe that in the Breton ballad, "Aotrou Nann Hag, ar Gorrigan," there are no less than eight verses which are almost word for word with a similar number of stanzas in "Renaud." The following version of "Sir Olaf" is very literal. I have even given the unmeaning burden, which I fancy is the same as one given by Jamieson in his translation of some Danish ballad. I suppose that the chorus is a common one:—

"Sir Olaf bestrides his courser proud,
When the matin sun shines fair;
Sir Olaf rides thro' the green forést,
When the moonbeams glimmer there.
(The deer and the does sleep in the shaws, out.)

"A sound comes waft on the forest breeze,
Of music and mirthsome glee;
For the fairies are tripping their mystic round,
All under the greenwood tree.

"And aye they sang and merrily sang
'How blest is the elfin crew!
О the dance is sweet, when the green-folk meet,
And the sward is starred wi' the dew.'

"And out and spake the Elfin King,
As his right arm tender'd he,
'Welcome! sir knight, to our moon-lit dance;
Sir Olaf! wilt dance with me?'

"'Now, nay! now, nay! thou Elfin King,
The evening speeds away;
The night-shades fly, for the dawn is nigh,
And the morn is my wedding day.'

"And out and spake the Elfin Queen,
As her white arm tender'd she;
'Welcome! sir knight, to our forest dance,
Sir Olaf! wilt dance with me?'

"'Now, nay! now, nay! thou Elfin Queen,
I may not brook delay;
Late, late is the night, and the morning light
Will soon on the dim fells play.'

"And out and spake the Queen's sister,
As she tender'd her lily hand;
'Sir Olaf will sure be a gallant knight,
And dance with our merry band?'

"'Now, nay! now, nay! thou pretty elf,
The morn is my wedding day;
It would go to the heart of my fair young bride
If I danced with another may.'

. . . . . .

"Sir Olaf is sick at heart, at heart
As he stands at his castle door:
'Take my barb to his stable, brother,
I never shall mount him more.

"'Spread my couch, my dear sister,
I am stricken by fairy spell;
The morrow morn ye may sing my dirge,
And may toll my passing-bell.'

"At early morn the bells rang out
Slow and sad from the belfry gray;
'Fain would I know why the bells are rung?'
'They peal for your wedding-day.'

"'But what is that solemn strain, mother,
So unmeet for a bridal song?'
'Sir Olaf is dead, and the mass-rite is said,
As his corse is aborne along.'

. . . . . .

"Three are laid in the chapel-garth
(All for grief they died),
Sir Olaf the knight, and his mother dear,
And Sir Olaf's fair young bride.
(The deer and the does sleep in the shaws, out.)"

James Henry Dixon.
Florence, Dec. 26, 1867.

* I will take this opportunity of noting that the Tales of Terror are not, as some suppose, by M. G. Lewis, alias Monk Lewis. The work was a miserable attempt at imitation and burlesque of Lewis's style. Some of Lewis's ballads were bad enough, but he never wrote such stuff as we find in the Tales of Terror. The only readable ballad is "The Black Canon of Elmham, or St. Edmond's Eve." and that is no great performance.—J. H. D.