Talk:The Twa Sisters

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I added Parallels in other languages, and listed the type classifications and titles I know of. My main source was The Types of the Scandinavian Medieval Ballad. Parallels from further languages should be appreciated.

This is a suggested model for what a `parallel section' could look like. IMO, in a `finished' version, this kind of fairly short information could be enough (if it is comprehensive, i.e., covers all languages where parallels indeed are known; this is of course not the case right now). Note that when some ballad variants from other languages deviate substantially in part of the plot (e.g., as to whether the end is happy or not), then this should be indicated, too.JoergenB 13:38, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Someone replaced the reference of (ballad) type with (ballad) theme. Actually, type in this context is a term used by researchers, and stands for 'a certain group of collected ballad occurrences with certain shared characteristica'; including a supposedly common origin for at least some important part of the ballad. Cf. e.g. The Types of the Scandinavian Medieval Ballad. Much of the rest of the text also was re-written and expanded in other parts; and perhaps it was slightly unclear to some editors that the work of Child and other ballad catalogiserz did not only consist in collecting, but also in grouping the collected items by reasonable degrees of relatedness.

I'm very much minded to put back the reference to "types". I also think that the expanded text about The Bonny Swans should be put under the heading Versions, not under Connections to other ballads. A large reason for the existence of different versions is that a great number of anonymous people have done similar changes as Loreena McKennitt did. This doesn't make her version into a "different but related ballad", if the 'type' remains essentially the same. In the old days there was sometimes a kind of mythology, separating "the people" from "consciously acting modern individuals". Some "middle class" or "upper class" persons saw the popular ballads as the effects of a kind of unconscious activity, or of creations by a "group soal".

Nowadays, researchers generally recognise that the people who sang, changed, added to, and subtracted from the ballads were the same kinds of human beings as are "modern" or "scolarly" people. The fact that we mostly don't know the name of the people making the changes is not very important. In fact, we do know that some of the "variants of medieval ballads" recognised in SMB were created in the beginning of the 19'th century by a couple of persons with very known names, by composing verses from various versions, much in the same manner as Loretta McKennitt is said to have "created a related ballad". Their names were Erik Gustaf Geijer and Arvid August Afzelius, and they did it while working with a (non-scientific) ballad edition. Later, more professional folklorists like Child or Svend Grundtvig generally avoided this, and tried to make more diplomatic ballad editions. However, users of the ballads have continued to change them. This is not the same as writing new ballads, even if it is done in the 21'st century.

Finally, it is not at all uncommon that variants of different ballad types use the same burden, and sometimes the same melody, too. This also is worth to mention, but is not really creating a "relation to another ballad type" (since burdens vary so much that they in general are not included in the ballad typology). Thus, I think that all the content of the section Connections to other ballads should be distributed to other parts, and the section removed (if no other connections are found). JoergenB 18:33, 2 April 2007 (UTC)