Note 13 — 116 ADAM BELL, CLIM OF THE CLOUGH, AND WILLIAM OF CLOUDESLY

Torfæus, in his history of Norway, III, 371, speaks of a ballad about Heming sung in his time, c. 1700, which would seem to have been the same as this, only somewhat fuller. Landstad, p. 187.

These ballads represent the king as regarding himself as quite unapproachable in athletic exercises. The little boy of ballads, smádrengin, kongins lítil svein, Norwegian B, Färöe A, or, in a Färöe variation (Hammershaimb, p. 161), Harald’s queen, intimates knowledge of an equal or superior. Harald answers, in true ballad style, in Färöe A 6, If he is not my better, you shall burn for it. In Norwegian B, Färöe A, the king immediately sets out to find his rival. Cf. Charlemagne and King Arthur, I, 275, 279, and the beginning of ‘King Estmere,’ II, 51, and Landstad, p. 177, note 1.