out of a drawer and handed it to him, whereupon he disappeared. If remonstrated with, and told that this was a dream, she would wax warm and say: ‘I know it is true. I know it, for the silk handkerchief disappeared from that night. And if you’d ha’ opened his grave you’d ha’ found it in his coffin.’
Sometimes the dead lover insists on taking away his betrothed, unless she can redeem herself by answering certain riddles. There is a widely-known and sung ballad called The Unquiet Grave. It begins:—
Cold blow the winds of night, sweetheart,
Cold are the drops of rain.
The very first love that ever I had,
In greenwood he was slain.
The damsel goes to the graveyard and sits above where he is buried.
A twelvemonth and a day being up,
The ghost began to speak:
‘Why sit you here, by my graveside,
And will not let me sleep?
‘What is it that you want of me,
And will not let me sleep?
Your salten tears they trickle down,
And wet my winding sheet.’
‘What is it that I want of thee,
O what of thee in grave?
A kiss from off thy lily-white lips,
And that is all I crave.’
