learnt to pace, to pace.

And I was full eight years, I wot,
   Within the quiet, green retreat.
Close couched beside the hind I got
   Full many a slumber calm and sweet.

I had clothes and shelter of no kind,
   Except the linden green alone;
And, save the gentle forest hind,
   Had nurse and foster-mother none.

But forth on courser reeking hot
   There rushed a knight of bearing bold,
And he my foster-mother shot
   With arrow on the verdant wold.

He pierced the hind with mortal wound,
   And all our fond connection cut;
Then wrapped his cloak my frame around,
   And me within his buckler put.

That self-same knight, so bold and strong,
   Within his bower the foundling bred;
He tended me both well and long,
   And finally his bride he made.

He had by long inquiry found
   My father was a noble count
In Vendel’s land, who castles own’d,
   And rul’d o’er many a plain and mount.

The first night we together slept
   Was fraught with woe of darkest hue;
Foes, whom he long at bay had kept,
   Broke in on us, and him they slew.

The night we lay together first
   A deed of horror was fulfill’d;
The bride-house door his foemen burst,
   And in my arms my husband kill’d.

Soon, soon, my friends to counsel go,
   A husband new they chose for me;
The cloister’s prior of mitred brow—
   The good Sir Nilaus styl’d was he.

But soon as I the threshold cross’d,
   The nuns could not their fury smother;
They vow’d by God and all His Host,
   The Prior Nilaus was my brother.

Forth from the cloister him they drew,
   They pelted him to death with stones;
I stood close by, and all could view,
   I scarce could hear his piteous moans.

Once more my friends to counsel hied,
   For me another spouse they get—
Son of the King of England wide
   Was he, and hight Sir Engelbret.

Nine winters with that princely youth
   I lived; of joy we had no dearth,
I tell to ye, for sooth and truth,
   To ten fair sons that I gave birth.

But pirate crews the land beset,
   No one, no one, my grief could tell;
They slew with sword Sir Engelbret,
   And nine of my fair sons as well.

My husband and my sons with brand
   They slew.  How I bewail their case!
My tenth son here they from the land—
   I never more shall see his face.

Now is my care as complicate
   As golden threads which maidens spin;
God crown with bliss Sir Engelbret,
   He ever was so free from sin.

But now I’ll take the holy vows,
   Within the cloister under Ey;
I’ll ne’er become another’s spouse,
   But in religion I will die.

But first to all the country side
   I will declare my bosom’s grief;
I find, the more my grief I hide,
   The less, the less, is my relief.

THE CRUEL MOTHER-IN-LAW

From his home and his country Sir Volmor should fare,
His wife he commends to his mother’s best care.

Proud Lyborg she sang, as the dancers she watched,
Behind stood Dame Ingeborg, malice she hatched.

“To live to the Fall if the luck I enjoy
Fair lady, thy beautiful voice I’ll destroy.”

Proud Lyborg’s fair maidens upon the floor sprang,
And all through the