There is one feature entirely peculiar to #R#. The knight carries off the maid, as before, but when they come to the hazel bush there are eleven doves that sing this "new song:"
'Be not beguiled, maiden, The knight is beguiling thee:
'We are eleven already, Thou shalt be the twelfth.'
The eleven doves are of course the spirits of the eleven preceding victims. The maid's inquiry as to what they mean is lost. The knight's evasion is not ingenious, but more likely to allay suspicion than simply saying, "I am no such murderer." He says, "Fear not: the doves are singing a song that is common in these parts." When they come to the spring "where blood and water are running," and the maid asks what strange spring is this, the knight answers in the same way, and perhaps could not do better: "Fear not: _there is_ in these parts a spring that runs blood and water." This spring is misplaced, for it occurs before they enter the wood. The last scene in the ballad is incomplete, and goes no further than the brother's exclamation when he comes in upon the knight: "Stop, young knight! Spare my sister's life." The parties in #R# are nameless.
So again in #S#, which also has neither the knight's enchanting song nor the bloody spring. There are two doves, as in #J#, stanza 4. The cries are addressed to mother, father, brother, as in #N#, and, as in #N#, again, the brother cocks his gun, and shoots the knight down;[50] then calmly leads his sister home, with the warning against knights.
(III.) #T#, the first of the third series, has marked signs of deterioration. Ulrich does not enchant Ännchen by his song, and promise to teach it to her; he offers to teach her "bird-song." They _walk_ out together, apparently, and come to a hazel, with no dove; neither is there any spring. Annie sits down on the grass; Ulrich lays his head in her lap; she weeps, and he asks why. It is for eleven maids in the fir-tree, as so often before. Ulrich's style has become much tamer:
'Ah, Annie, Annie, dear to me, How soon shalt thou the twelfth one be!'
She begs for three cries, and calls to her father, to God, to her youngest brother. The last is sitting over the wine and hears. He demands of Ulrich where she is, and is told, Upon yon linden, spinning silk. Then ensues this dialogue: Why are your shoes blood-red? Why not? I have shot a dove. That dove my mother bare under her breast. Annie is laid in the grave, and angels sing over her; Ulrich is broken on the wheel, and round him the ravens cry.