The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #164203   Message #3928807
Posted By: Richie
02-Jun-18 - 06:25 PM
Thread Name: Origins: James Madison Carpenter- Child Ballads 3
Subject: RE: Origins: James Madison Carpenter- Child Ballads 3
Lighter,

The macabre folk tales similar to Child 10 are explored in Mackensen's "The Singing Bone," see also Thompson. Child 10 has been adapted in 1890 as an English fairy tale "Binnorie" by Joseph Jacob: http://www.bluegrassmessengers.com/binnorie--joseph-jacob--english-fairy-tales-1890.aspx

The Scandinavian variants are not analogues but derivative variants see " 'The Twa Sisters,' Going Which Way?" by Harbison Parker, 1951 who says, "Knut Liestol concludes concerning this perplexing ambiguity, in his study of 'Dei tvo systar,' that the likeliest explanation of this is, that the ballad first was composed in England or Scotland, there split itself into two versions, and both of these then came to Scandinavia by different paths, one to Norway (Iceland, the Faeroe Islands) and the other to Denmark." Phillips Barry, 1931, however says, "The diffusion of the ballad from Scandinavia to Britain has been rightly and generally accepted." I suppose Parker's study is a rebuttal to both of Barry's articles.

Barry was critical of Archer Taylor's 1929 study which separated the ballads into two forms: the English and Scottish forms.

Richie