Note 78 — 4 LADY ISABEL AND THE ELF-KNIGHT (continued 2)

The scenery of the halting-place in the wood—the bloody streams in Danish A, B, D, H, L, K, the blood-girt spring in German H, J, K, L, O, P, Q—is also, to say the least, suggestive of something horribly uncanny. These are undoubtedly ancient features, though the spring, as the Danish editor observes, has no longer any significancy in the German ballads, because in all of them the previous victims are said to have been hanged.