#B.# The Ulinger story is also found combined with that of the beautiful ballad, 'Wassermanns Braut.'[55] (1.) In a Transylvanian ballad, 'Brautmörder,' Schuster, Siebenbürgisch-sächsische Volkslieder, p. 57, No 54 #A#, 38 vv, with variations, and p. 59, #B#, a fragment of 10 vv; (#A# in a translation, Böhme, No 14, p. 61.) A king from the Rhine sues seven years for a king's daughter, and does not prevail till the eighth. She begs her mother not to consent, for she has seen it in the sun that she shall not long be her daughter, in the moon that she shall drown before the year is out, in the bright stars that her blood shall be dispersed far and wide. He takes her by the hand, and leads her through a green wood, at the end of which a grave is already made. He pushes her into the grave, and drives a stake through her heart. The princess' brother asks what has become of his sister. "I left her on the Rhine, drinking mead and wine." "Why are your skirts so bloody?" "I have shot a turtle-dove." "That turtle-dove was, mayhap, my sister." They spit him on a red-hot stake, and roast him like a fish. Lines 1-4 of this ballad correspond to 1-4 of #Y# (which last agree with 1-4 of Meinert's 'Wassermanns Braut'); 17, 18, to #Y# 5, 6; 25-34 to 21-30; and we find in verse 22 the stake through the heart which Hoffmann has interpolated in #W#, stanza 12.
(2.) A Silesian copy of 'Wassermanns Braut,' co[llecte]d by [Ho]ffman contributed to Deutsches Museum, 1852, II, 164, represents the bride, after she has fallen into the water and has been recovered by the nix, as asking for three cries, and goes on from this point like the Ulrich ballad #W#, the conclusion being that the sister is drowned before the brother comes to her aid.[56]
'Nun schürz dich, Gredlein,' "Forster's Frische Liedlein, No 66," Böhme, No 53, Uhland, No 256 A, which is of the date 1549, and therefore older than the Nuremberg and Augsburg broadsides, has derived stanzas 7-9 from an Ulinger ballad, unless this passage is to be regarded as common property. Some copies of the ballad commonly called 'Müllertücke' have also adopted verses from Ulinger, especially that in Meier's Schwäbische Volkslieder, No 233, p. 403.
A form of ballad resembling English #C-F#, but with some important differences, is extraordinarily diffused in #Poland#. There is also a single version of the general type of English #A#, or, better, of the first class of the German ballads. This version, #A#, Pauli, Pie[/s][/n]i ludu Polskiego w Galicyi, p. 90, No 5, and Kolberg, Pie[/s]ni ludu Polskiego, No 5, #bbb#, p. 70, runs thus. There was a man who went about the world wiling away young girls from father and mother. He had already done this with eight; he was now carrying off the ninth. He took her to a frightful wood; then bade her look in the direction of her house. She asked, "What is that white thing that I see on yon fir?" "There are already eight of them," he said, "and you shall be the ninth; never shall you go back to your father and mother. Take off that gown, Maria." Maria was looking at his sword. "Don't touch, Maria, for you will wound your pretty little hands." "Don't mind my hands, John," she replied, "but rather see what a bold heart I have;" and instantly John's head flew off. Then follows a single stanza, which seems to be addressed to John's mother, after the manner of the German #A#, etc.: "See, dear mother! I am thy daughter-in-law, who have just put that traitor out of the world." There is a moral for conclusion, which is certainly a later addition.