If this was the original form of the Dutch ballad, and the Dutch ballad is the source from which all the other ballads have come, by processes of dropping, taking up, and transforming, then we may feel compelled to admit that this ballad might be a wild shoot from the story of Judith. Any one who bears in mind the strange changes which stories undergo will hesitate to pronounce this impossible. What poor Ophelia says of us human creatures is even truer of ballads: "We know what we are, but know not what we may be."
But when we consider how much would have to be dropped, how much to be taken up, and how much to be transformed, before the Hebrew "gest" could be converted into the European ballad, we naturally look for a less difficult hypothesis. It is a supposition attended with less difficulty that an independent European tradition existed of a half-human, half-demonic being, who possessed an irresistible power of decoying away young maids, and was wont to kill them after he got them into his hands, but who at last found one who was more than his match, and lost his own life through her craft and courage. A modification of this story is afforded by the large class of Bluebeard tales. The Quintalin story seems to be another variety, with a substitution of lust for bloodthirst. The Dutch ballad may have been _affected_ by some lost ballad of Holofern, and may have taken up some of its features, at least that of carrying home Halewyn's [Roland's] head, which is found in no other version.[93]
#A a# is translated by Grundtvig in Engelske og skotske Folkeviser, No 37, p. 230: #B b# in the same, No 36, p. 227: #C a#, #b#, #D a#, #b#, blended, No 35, p. 221. #A#, by Rosa Warrens, Schottische V. L. der Vorzeit, No 1, p. 1: Gerhard, p. 15. #C b#, by Rosa Warrens, No 34, p. 148: Wolf, Halle der Völker, I, 38, Hausschatz, 225. #C#, #D#, etc., as in Allingham, p. 244, by Knortz, Lied. u. Rom. Alt-Englands, No 4, p. 14.
#a.# Buchan's Ballads of the North of Scotland, I, 22. #b.# Motherwell's MS., p. 563.
1 Fair lady Isabel sits in her bower sewing, Aye as the gowans grow gay There she heard an elf-knight blawing his horn. The first morning in May
2 'If I had yon horn that I hear blawing, And yon elf-knight to sleep in my bosom.'