The Twa Sisters

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"The Twa Sisters" is a murder ballad that recounts the tale of a girl drowned by her sister. It is first known to have appeared on a broadside in 1656 as "The Miller and the King's Daughter." At least 21 English variants exist under several names, including "Minnorie" or "Binnorie", "The Cruel Sister", "The Wind and Rain", "Two Sisters", and the "Bonnie Bows of London". The ballad was collected by Francis J. Child (Child 10) and is also listed in the Roud Folk Song Index (Roud 8).

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[edit] Synopsis

Two sisters go down by a body of water, sometimes a river and sometimes the sea. The older one pushes the younger in and refuses to pull her out again; generally the lyrics explicitly state her intent to drown her younger sister. Her motive, when included in the lyrics, is sexual jealousy--in some variants, the sisters are being two-timed by a suitor; in others, the elder sister's affections are not encouraged by the young man. In a few versions, a third sister is mentioned, but plays no significant role in events. In most versions, the older sister is described as dark, while the younger sister is fair.

When the murdered girl's body floats ashore, someone makes a musical instrument out of it, generally a harp or a fiddle, with a frame of bone and the girl's "long yellow hair" (or "golden hair") for strings. The instrument then plays itself and sings about the murder. In some versions, this occurs after the musician has taken it to the family's household, so that the elder sister is publicly revealed (sometimes at her wedding to the murdered girl's suitor) as the murderess.

It should be noted that the variant titled The Two Sisters typically omits the haunted instrument entirely, ending instead with an unrelated person (often a miller) executed for robbing the murdered girl's corpse and the elder sister presumably going unpunished.

[edit] Parallels in other languages

The theme of this ballad was common in many northern European languages.[1] There are 125 different variants known in Swedish alone. Its general Scandinavian classification is TSB A 38; and it is (among others) known as Den talende strængelek or De to søstre (DgF 95) in Danish, Hørpu ríma (CCF 136) in Faroese, Hörpu kvæði (IFkv 13) in Icelandic, Dei tvo systar in Norwegian, and De två systrarna (SMB 13) in Swedish. It has also spread further south; for example, as Gosli iz človeškega telesa izdajo umor (A Fiddle Made from a Human Body Reveals a Murder) in Slovenian.

In the Norse variants, the older sister is depicted as dark and the younger as fair, often with great contrast, comparing the one to soot or the other to the sun or milk. This can inspire taunts from the younger about the older's looks.[2]

In most of the Norwegian and some of the Swedish variants, the story ends by the instrument being broken and the younger sister coming alive again.[3] In a few, she was not actually drowned, but saved and nursed back to health; she tells the story herself.[4]

This tale is also found in prose form, in fairy tales such as The Singing Bone, where the siblings are brothers instead of sisters.[5] This is wide-spread throughout Europe; often the motive is not jealousy because of a lover, but the younger child's success in winning the object that will cure the king, or that will win the father's inheritance.[6]

In Polish literature from the romanticism period, a similar theme is found in Balladyna (1838) by Juliusz Słowacki. Two sisters engage in a raspberry-gathering contest to decide which of them gets to marry Prince Kirkor. When the younger Alina wins, the older Balladyna kills her. Finally, she is killed by a lightning in an act of divine punishment.

[edit] Connections to other ballads

At least one variant of this ballad ("Cruel Sister") uses the refrain from another traditional ballad, "Riddles Wisely Expounded" (Child 1). "Lay the bent to the bonny broom", the main phrase of the refrain, is a variant title of that ballad.

Canadian singer and harpist Loreena McKennitt's song "The Bonny Swans" is a pastiche of several traditional variants of the ballad. The first stanza mentions the third sister, but she subsequently disappears from the narrative. In the music video we see her after the first stanza, but she is not mentioned in the words.

It also bears a resemblance to an early Alfred Lord Tennyson poem, The Sisters, which follows a sister scorned in love who murders the lover of her sister, and possibly the sister too, out of jealousy

[edit] Versions

  • Joseph Jacobs recast in fairy tale form as part of English Fairy Tales (1890).[7]
  • Pentangle released their album Cruel Sister in 1970, the title track being a rendition of this ballad.
  • Clandestine (The Haunting), Ceoltoiri, Ekova (Space Lullabies and Other Fantasmagore) and Old Blind Dogs (Close to the Bone) have all released versions under the title "Cruel Sister".
  • Patricia C. Wrede retold it as "Cruel Sisters" in her Book of Enchantments (1996), telling it from the point of view of the third sister, and giving it a revisionist twist.
  • The Celtic group Rù-Rà, consisting of Gaelic singer Maggie Carchrie and keyboardist/percussionist Thomas Leigh, recorded a version of the song on their album Rù-Rà entitled "Two Sisters"
  • The Danish band Sorten Muld's song "2 Søstre" ("Two Sisters" in English), the English translation of which recounts this folktale.
  • Finnish folk music group Gjallarhorn has a Swedish version titled "Systrarna" ("The Sisters") on their most recent album, Rimfaxe.
  • The Swedish group Folk & Rackare recorded a Swedish version, "De två systrarna", on their album Folk och rackare from 1976.
  • The Irish group Clannad has a version titled "Two Sisters" on their album Dúlamán.
  • go, mordecai! , a band from Buffalo, NY, has a song called "Sister (Oh, Beautiful One)" based on this balled.
  • Aoife Clancy recorded a version titled "Two Sisters" on her album Soldiers and Dreams.
  • Tom Waits includes his own version of "Two Sisters" on the Bastards disc of his Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards trilogy.
  • Folk metal band In Extremo recorded a German version of the song ("Two søstra") for the last track of their debut album Weckt Die Toten!.
  • Jim Moray included a rendition of this song on his album Sweet England under the title "Two Sisters".
  • Ewan MacColl recorded a version called "Minorie" which can be found on several of his recordings.
  • Martin Carthy and Dave Swarbrick recorded a version titled "The Bows of London".
  • Chris Wood, Roger Wilson and Martin Carthy recorded "Two Sisters" on Wood - Wilson - Carthy
  • The Armstrong Family, Altan, June Tabor, Crooked Still and Gillian Welch with David Rawlings and David Steele have all recorded versions of the song under the title "The Wind and Rain".
  • The movie Songcatcher includes a rendition of this song as "The Wind and Rain".
  • Okkervil River released the song under the title "The Dreadful Wind and Rain".
  • The Perilous Gard references the ballad and includes a few verses.
  • Loreena McKennitt has recorded a song with clear parallels to this one, known as "The Bonny Swans".
  • The Canadian Celtic band The Glengarry Bhoys recorded a version of the song on their album Juice entitled "Bonnie Broom".
  • Andrew Bird recorded a version of this song titled "Two Sisters" as the fifth track on the album Music of Hair.
  • Méav Ní Mhaolchatha recorded the song entitled "The Wicked Sister" for her album Silver Sea based on the ballad.
  • Jerry Garcia and David Grisman recorded "Dreadful Wind and Rain" on the Shady Grove album.
  • Regina Spektor and Levon Vincent recorded a version of the song, known as "Film Score Project" or "Two Sisters", for a college project during their studies at SUNY Purchase.[citation needed]
  • Kate Fletcher recorded a version of the song called "Cruel Sister" it is on her album Fruit.
  • Nico Muhly, in collaboration with singer and banjo player Sam Amidon, created a version called "The Only Tune".
  • Bob Dylan performed "Two Sisters" in the late 50s and early 60s, and a recording (from May 1960) appears on The Genuine Bootleg Series, Take 2.[8][9]
  • Julie Murphy recorded "Two Sisters" on her album Black Mountains Revisited (1999)
  • The story is featured in the movie The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm as "The Singing Bone". Instead of two sisters, it's a knight and his squire (squire played by Buddy Hackett). The two go to slay a dragon, but the knight show cowardice, while it's the squire who kills the dragon. The knight, ashamed of his cowardice, murders the squire and throws his body into the river/lake. One of the squire's bones washes up on shore, where it is found by a shepard. The boy makes a flute out of it, and when he plays it, the music begins to tell the story of the knight and his squire. The shepard takes the flute to the king, who is also hosting the knight. When the shepard plays the flute, the king and his court learns of the knight's crime. Then, the bone --along with the rest of the squire's corpse-- forms a skeleton, which then transforms into the squire, bringing him back to life.
  • A version called "Two sisters" was recorded by the singer Niamh Parsons. In that version the two sisters love the same man but he prefers the younger. To her he gives gifts while ignoring the elder of the two. In anger the elder sister pushed her sister into the river,mocking her drowning sister's offer to relinquish the young man if the elder saves her, by saying she will have him anyway. The girl's corpse floats to a mill where the miller takes her gold ring and pushes the body back into the river. It ends with the punishemnt of the two evildoers: the miller is hanged 'on a mountain head' while the eldest sister is boiled in lead.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Francis James Child, The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, v 1, p 119, Dover Publications, New York 1965
  2. ^ Francis James Child, The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, v 1, p 120, Dover Publications, New York 1965
  3. ^ Francis James Child, The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, v 1, p 121, Dover Publications, New York 1965
  4. ^ Francis James Child, The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, v 1, p 123, Dover Publications, New York 1965
  5. ^ Stith Thompson, The Folktale, p 136, University of California Press, Berkeley Los Angeles London, 1977
  6. ^ Francis James Child, The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, v 1, p 123, Dover Publications, New York 1965
  7. ^ Joseph Jacobs, English Fairy Tales, "Binnorie"
  8. ^ The Genuine Bootleg Series: Volume 2 with "The Two Sisters" (Disc 1, Track 1), performed at Karen Wallace's Apartment, May 1960
  9. ^ The Genuine Bootleg Series, Take 2 at Answers.com, with "The Two Sisters" (Disc 1, Track 1), performed in St. Paul, May 1960

[edit] External links

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