In Norway the ballad is generally known as
Villemann og Magnhild and catalogued as
Norske mellomalderballadar (NMB) no. 26. There are some 100 variants, although this count tallies up many fragmentary redactions only a few stanzas long. Some variants are known by other titles:
Harpespelet tvingar nykken in
Leiv Heggstad's collection, and two specimens called
Gaute og Magnild and
Guðmund og Signelita in the anthology compiled by
Landstad (1853). The version most often met in Norwegian songbooks today is
Knut Liestøl and
Moltke Moe's 32-stanza reconstructed text (1920). A full translation is given in Heidi Støa's paper (2008). It resembles the 22-stanza text printed by
Grundtvig (as a Norwegian variant to
DgF 40c).
Norwegian summary The Liestøl/Moe ballad begins as follows (the recurring "burden" is italicized): Villemann perceives that his beloved Magnill is weeping as the dice is cast while playing the board game (stanza 2). He makes a series of guesses why she is crying: "Cry you for fields, or cry you for meadows, etc.", and she replies she cries for none of these things (3 ~ 6). She cries because she knows she is destined for imminent death: her fair skin lying in the "darkling mould" (earth), her yellow hair rotting in "Vendel's river", having fallen from the "Blide bridge" like her sisters (7 ~ 9). The remainder follows the typical pan-Scandinavian pattern, except for a final conclusion. Thus the hero's promise to fortify bridge with pillars of lead and steel, and men riding alongside her, her protest of futility (10 ~ 15), her horse (shod with horseshoes and nails of red gold) rearing up on hind legs, her fall into the river (16 ~ 18), Villemann's playing golden harp from golden case, his playing mounts with ever more wondrous effects on nature (19 ~ 26). Finally the
nykkjen (
nøkken) releases one, then two (of her arms?), and pleads to bring stillness to his waters. But the hero refuses, and "the shatters against the hard stone" (
nykkjen han sprakk i hardan stein). The full text of the version of Liestøl and
Moltke Moe's reconstructed text is as follows:
Norwegian burdens The Liestøl/Moe text "
Villeman og Magnill" features only the one burden "
Så liflig leika Villemann for si skjønn jomfru" ("So delightfully Villemann played for his virgin so fair" The "interior refrain" and "burden" are repeated in the second and last lines of each
quatrain stanza, a common formula found in other ballads. and others.
Norwegian variations The scene of
tavl (board game) being played by the two is not present in all versions. Instead, the playing of the
gullharp by the hero occurs in the version performed by Strand and recorded by Myklebust. In some variants, the
gull element is seen in the hero's altered name: Gullmund, Guldmund, Gudmund, etc. The hero could be called Gaute also (which is close to the name of the hero in the Icelandic version). And Villemann may be seen under slightly different spellings: Villemand, Vellemand, Vilemann, even Wallemann. The "Blide bridge" that ironically means "Blithe Bridge" features in Danish versions as well. ==Icelandic==