The paradise promised Guldborg in all the old versions of 82[109] disappears from the recited copies, except #K#, #M#. It certainly did not originally belong to 'Ribold and Guldborg,' or to another Danish ballad in which it occurs ('Den trofaste Jomfru,' Grundtvig, 249 #A#), but rather to ballads like 'Kvindemorderen,' Grundtvig, 183 #A#, or 'Líti Kersti,' Landstad, 44, where a supernatural being, a demon or a hillman, seeks to entice away a mortal maid. See No 4, p. 27. In 82 #L#, #N#, #U#, #V#, #Y#, #Æ#, #Ø#, and Kristensen's copies, the lovers are not encountered by anybody who reports their flight. Most of the later versions, #K#, #L#, #M#, #N#, #P#, #U#, #V#, #Y#, #Æ#, #Ø#, and Kristensen's three, make them halt in a wood, where Ribold goes to sleep in Guldborg's lap, and is roused by her when she perceives that they are pursued. So Norwegian #B#, Swedish #A#, #B#, #C#, and 'Hildebrand and Hilde' #B#. #M#, #Q#, #R#, #S#, #T#, #Z#, have not a specific prohibition of _dead-naming_, but even these enjoin silence. 83 #C# is the only ballad in which there is a fight and no prohibition of either kind, but it is clear from the course of the story that the stanza containing the usual injunction has simply dropped out. #P# is distinguished from all other forms of the story by the heroine's killing herself before her dying lover reaches his house.
The four first copies of 'Hildebrand and Hilde,' as has been seen, have the story of Ribold and Guldborg with some slight differences and some abridgment. There is no elopement in #B#: the lovers are surprised in the princess' bower. When Hilde has finished her tale, in #A#, the queen declares that Hildebrand was her son. In #B# she interrupts the narrative by announcing her discovery that Hildebrand was her brother. #C# and #D# have nothing of the sort. There is no fight in #E-H#. #E# has taken up the commonplace of the bower on the strand which was forced by nine men.[110] Hildebrand is again the son of the queen, and, coming in just as Hilde has expired, exclaims that he will have no other love, sets his sword against a stone, and runs upon it. #H# has the same catastrophe. #F# represents the father as simply showing great indignation and cruelty on finding out that one of the guardian knights had beguiled his daughter, and presently selling her for a new church bell. The knight turns out here again to be the queen's son; the queen says he shall betroth Hille, and Hille faints for joy. #G# agrees with #B# as to the surprise in the bower. The knight's head is hewn off on the spot. The queen gives Hilde her youngest son for a husband, and Hilde avows that she is consoled. #I# agrees with #E# so far as it goes, but is a short fragment.