However, none of his knights and pages is willing to do so, and the king has to ask three times before an Edelknecht (squire) finds his courage.
He deposits his sword and his coat and commends his life to God and jumps into the intimidating sea.
Several scholars including folklorist Giuseppe Pitrè suggested that the ballad was connected to the folktale of Cola Pesce, which similarly has a king order a man to dive underwater multiple times after a piece of treasure, until on a final trip the swimmer dies.
[3] However, Schiller did not recognize the story as a folktale and was unfamiliar with the name "Nicolaus Pesce" when he heard it, as shown in his letters.
John Edward Fletcher suggests that Schiller had originally heard an oral version of the diver's story, sans name, from Goethe.