There is a very common German ballad, 'Graf Friedrich,' in which a bride receives a mortal wound during the bringing-home, but accidentally, and from the bridegroom's hand. The marriage train is going up a hill; the way is narrow; they are crowded; Graf Friedrich's sword shoots from its sheath and wounds the bride. The bridegroom is exceedingly distressed; he tries to stop the bleeding with his shirt; she begs that they may ride slowly. When they reach the house there is a splendid feast, and everything is set before the bride; but she can neither eat nor drink, and only wishes to lie down. She dies in the night. Her father comes in the morning, and, learning what has happened, runs Graf Friedrich through, then drags his body at a horse's heels, and buries it in a bog. Three lilies sprang from the spot, with an inscription announcing that Graf Friedrich was in heaven, and a voice came from the sky commanding that the body should be disinterred. The bridegroom was then buried with his bride, and this act of reparation was attended with other miraculous manifestations. As the ballads stand now, the kinship of 'Graf Friedrich' with 'The Cruel Brother' is not close and cannot be insisted on; still an early connection is not improbable.
The versions of 'Graf Friedrich' are somewhat numerous, and there is a general agreement as to all essentials. They are: #A#, a Nuremberg broadside "of about 1535," which has not been made accessible by a reprint. #B#, a Swiss broadside of 1647, without place, "printed in Seckendorf's Musenalmanach für 1808, p. 19;" Uhland, No 122, p. 277; Mittler, No 108; Wunderhorn, II, 293 (1857); Erk's Liederhort, No 15^a, p. 42; Böhme, No 79, p. 166: also, in Wunderhorn, 1808, II, 289, with omission of five stanzas and with many changes; Simrock, No 11, p. 28, omitting four stanzas and with changes; as written down by Goethe for Herder, Düntzer u. Herder, Briefe Goethes, u.s.w., Aus Herder's Nachlass, I, 167, with the omission of eight stanzas and with some variations. #C#, Wunderhorn (1857), II, 299, from the Schwarzwald,==Erlach, IV, 291, Mittler, No 113. #D#, Taschenbuch für Dichter, u.s.w., Theil VIII, 122, from Upper Lusatia,==Erlach, III, 448, Talvj, Charakteristik, p. 421. #E#, from the Kuhländchen, Meinert, p. 23,==Mittler, No 109. #F#, Hoffmann u. Richter, Schlesische V. L., No 19, p. 35,==Mittler, No 112, Erk's Liederhort, No 15, p. 40. #G#, Zingerle, in Wolf's Zeitschrift für deutsche Mythologie, I, 341, from Meran. #H#, from Uckermark, Brandenburg, Mittler, No 114. #I#, Hesse, from oral tradition, Mittler, No 111. #J#, Erk u. Irmer, II, 54, No 54, from the neighborhood of Halle,==Mittler, No 110. #K#, from Estedt, district of Magdeburg, Parisius, p. 31, No 9.