There are, besides, in various ballads of this second class, special resemblances to other European forms. The man (to whom rank of any sort is assigned only in #N#[62]) comes from a distant country, or from over the border, in #O#, #Q#, #R#, #T#, #DD#, #GG#, as in English #D#, #E#. The maid is at a window in #M#, #W#, as in German #G#, #J#, #M#, #O#, #P#, #Q#, etc. In #Q# 2, John, who has come from over the border, persuades the maid to go with him by telling her that in his country "the mountains are golden, the mountains are of gold, the ways of silk," reminding us of the wonderland in Danish #A#, #E#, etc. After the pair have stolen away, they go one hundred and thirty miles, #O#, #DD#, #FF#; thrice nine miles, #Q#; nine and a half miles, #T#; cross one field and another, #M#, #R#; travel all night, #GG#; and neither says a word to the other. We shall find this trait further on in French #B#, #D#, Italian #B#, #C#, #D#, #F#, #G#. The choice of deaths which we find in German #A-F# appears in #J#. Here, after passing through a silent wood, they arrive at the border of the (red) _sea_. She sits down on a stone, he on a rotten tree. He asks, By which death will you die: by my right hand, or by drowning in this _river_? They come to a dark wood in #AA#; he seats himself on a beech-trunk, she near a stream. He asks, Will you throw yourself into the river, or go home to your mother? So #H#, and #R# nearly.[63] She prefers death to returning. Previous victims are mentioned in #T#, #DD#, #HH#. When she calls from the river for help, he answers, #T# 22, You fancy you are the only one there; six have gone before, and you are the seventh: #HH# 16, Swim the river; go down to the bottom; six maids are there already, and you shall be the seventh [four, fifth]: #DD# 13, Swim, swim away, to the other side; there you will see my seventh wife.[64]
Other Slavic forms of this ballad resemble more or less the third German class. A #Wendish# version from Upper Lusatia, Haupt and Schmaler, Part I, No I, p. 27, makes Hil[vz]i[vc]ka (Lizzie) go out before dawn to cut grass. Ho[/l]dra[vs]k suddenly appears, and says she must pay him some forfeit for trespassing in his wood. She has nothing but her sickle, her silver finger-ring, and, when these are rejected, her wreath, and that, she says, he shall not have if she dies for it. Ho[/l]dra[vs]k, who avows that he has had a fancy for her seven years (cf. German #Y#, and the Transylvanian mixed form #B#), gives her her choice, to be cut to pieces by his sword, or trampled to death by his horse. Which way pleases him, she says, only she begs for three cries. All three are for her brothers. They ride round the wood twice, seeing nobody; the third time Ho[/l]drak comes up to them. Then follows the dialogue about the bloody sword and the dove. When asked where he has left Hi[/l][vz]i[vc]ka, Ho[/l]dra[vs]k is silent. The elder brother seizes him, the younger dispatches him with his sword.