Note 37 — 4 LADY ISABEL AND THE ELF-KNIGHT
Reading edition
Both D and E have attached to them this final stanza:
'Odilia, why are thy shoes so red?' 'It is three doves that I shot dead.'
This is a well-known commonplace in tragic ballads; and Grundtvig suggests that this stanza was the occasion of the story taking the turn which we find in ballads of the third class.