A Ballad and a Movie

Ingmar Bergman's 1960 Jungfrukällan (The Virgin Spring) is unusual among his films in that it does not derive from the auteur director's own, original screenplay but rather from a medieval source text (a Swedish ballad), which was then adapted for the screen by Ulla Isaksson. In a radio interview conducted just before the premiere of Jungfrukällan in 1960, Bergman says that he first read the source ballad while in university, from Sverker Ek's 1924 anthology Den svenska folkvisan (The Swedish Ballad), where its title is “Töres dotter i Vänge” (The Daughter of Töre in Vänge).1 Bergman first considered producing a version for the ballet, but then, while on the set of Smultronstället (1957; Wild Strawberries), he decided instead to make a film adaptation (Billquist 1960, 206). He sent the ballad to Isaksson, with whom he worked on his next film, Nära livet (1958; Brink of Life or Close to Life), about three women in a maternity ward. Ulla Isaksson wrote the screenplay for Brink of Life based on two short stories she had published in 1954.2 In 1957, Bergman had scripted and directed another now classic film based on a medieval subject, Det sjunda inseglet (The Seventh Seal), so film critics have sought to explain why he turned to Isaksson for the equally medieval-themed Virgin Spring. Bergman himself said that sometimes (in those days) he just did not have the time to write his own scripts (Austin 1973, 123).3 More profoundly, he stated: “Jag ville inte att det skulle bli en projektion av mitt inre drama utan en fri, objektiv gestaltning” (Billquist 1960, 206) [I did not want (the film) to be a projection of my inner drama but rather a free, objective interpretation]. Isaksson would provide that outside objectivity. Along these lines, Frank Gado suggested that because some critics had objected to the “overblown rhetoric” of The Seventh Seal, Bergman turned to Isaksson, whose “novel set in the Middle Ages had been praised for its realistic manner” (Gado 1986, 242). Presumably, Gado is referring to Isaksson's Dit du icke vill (Where You Don't Want to Go, or Whither Thou Wouldst Not) from 1956, about witch trials and not in fact set in the Middle Ages but rather in the seventeenth century.4 It is also likely that Isaksson, as someone with a firmer religious belief, could write more in sympathy with the medieval source, which culminates in a Christian miracle.5 Some scholars, however, have expressed a desire that Bergman himself had written the screenplay. Gervais says of the ending of the film: “We may indeed be hearing far more of Ulla Isaksson's voice than Ingmar Bergman's” (1999, 68). So also Jerry Gill noted: “The Virgin Spring is a major work, but it was not written by Bergman, and thus is not really expressive of his ideology” (1969, 14–5); and Philip Mosley said: “The Virgin Spring ends in a forced, sentimental way” (1981, 79). Jörn Donner, on the other hand, writes that Bergman “manages to surmount the weaknesses of the manuscript [i.e., screenplay], create a shattering drama from something that was intended to be a sermon” (1962, 191). Vernon Young calls the work “selfless” and yet “deeply felt,” Bergman's masterwork (1971, 188).In any case, Isaksson wrote the screenplay, which in its published form is somewhat novelized, recording much the same dialogue as the film, but also providing prose descriptions for the settings and actions, with occasional interpretive comments (e.g., “Ingeri is a sturdy dark-haired girl, brave and frightened at the same time” [Isakksson 1960, 1]). Few scholars quote any of these prose passages, except Gervais, who does so for the scene in which the beggar frightens the young rover with a vision of hell (Gervais 1999, 67–8; cf. Isaksson 1960, 80–2). Vernon Young mentions the screenplay's unusual amount of “description, dense, concrete and sensuous” (1971, 188). Other Bergman scholars have sometimes confused this treatment for an Isaksson novel. Steene refers to “Ulla Isaksson's English edition of The Virgin Spring as a novel” (1987, 101). Laity writes (incorrectly) that “Bergman came to the film version of the ballad by way of novelist Ulla Isaksson, screenwriter for the film” (2007, 181). But as Bergman himself informs us, he found the ballad first, sent it to Isaksson, and she adapted it for the screen at his suggestion. While he is uncredited, Bergman must have contributed to the screenplay in some ways, at least during the filming in Dalarna. Cowie writes that “he and Ulla Isaksson wrote away in separate rooms at the Hotel Siljansborg” (1992, 181). The screenplay was then published in English in a novelized version.6 The screenplay volume (Isaksson 1960) includes a preface by Isaksson, the Swedish source ballad (from Ek's edition) in English translation (reprinted with commentary below), the novelized screenplay (with dialogue and prose descriptions of the action), and appended brief biographies of Isaksson and Bergman. This published screenplay is not identical with the film in every detail (as is usually the case); most notably, it implicates the young boy in Karin's rape (Isaksson 1960, 63–4) and not just the two older goatherds. Isaksson also seems to assign some blame to Karin by saying she “flirts a little” (1960, 56; see further below).In light of the complicated and unusual aspects of Virgin Spring's origins and the critical confusion surrounding them, I will first discuss the film's ballad source in the context of related Scandinavian and Scottish ballads (a subject that is virtually unknown to Bergman scholars), and then examine how that ballad source is adapted by Isaksson and Bergman. The process of film adaptation has become more theorized in recent decades by critics such as Linda Hutcheon, Thomas Leitch, and Roger Stam. The examination of changes made (or interactions conducted) by screenplay writer and director to (or with) a prior source can illuminate the practice of even such an auteur director as Bergman. Further, within the history of film adaptations, working from a medieval ballad is quite rare (as against a novel, play, or comic book) and brings its own distinctive generic influences.7 After outlining the literary and cinematic adaptations made by Isaksson and Bergman, I append Ek's conjectural edition of the Swedish ballad, with notes indicating precisely how he combined the extant versions. I also append annotated translations of the Swedish and Icelandic versions. These combined materials will facilitate more detailed insights into the film and its sources.Bergman scholars and critics usually mention that The Virgin Spring is based on a Swedish ballad (or sometimes less accurately, a medieval legend, or a folk song), with reference to the English translation “The Daughter of Töre in Vänge,” published along with the screenplay by Ulla Isaksson (1960, ix–xii).8 Almost no critics cite a Swedish original for the ballad; Billquist is the sole exception (1960, 206–8).9 A few scholars quote Birgitta Steene's comment that “the student of folklore can easily show that the ballad of Töre's daughter exists in many versions” (1968, 89), without, however, examining those versions and the placement within them of the particular source ballad used by Bergman. As it happens, that version is quite anomalous within the tradition; it is a much-altered modern reconstruction by Swedish scholar Sverker Ek, as I will demonstrate below.First, it might be informative (as is customary in ballad scholarship) to look at related ballads across the Scandinavian corpus, and also at an analogous Scottish ballad (Child 1957, no. 14). Bergman's source ballad is classified with all those related to it in subject matter (from Denmark, Sweden, Norway, the Faroes, and Iceland) as “TSB B21” in the standard index Types of the Scandinavian Medieval Ballad (Jonsson et al. 1978). It is labeled “Herr Truelses Døtre” (Herr Truels's Daughters), the title of a version taken down in the standard Danish collection Danmarks gamle Folkeviser (DgF 1895–1898, no. 338, 6:114–40). The TSB subclassification letter B refers to legendary ballads, ballads with Christian themes including saints’ lives and miracle stories; number 21 is more narrowly one of the ballads concerning anonymous martyrs.In Iceland, the related ballad is titled “Kvæði af vallara systrabana” (Ballad of the Sister-Killing Rover) or “Þorkelsdætra kvæði” (Ballad of Thorkell's Daughters) (Íslenzk fornkvæði no. 15, as first numbered in Grundtvig and Sigurðsson 1854). It can be subclassified as both a “murder ballad” and a legendary ballad, incorporating a miracle of the Virgin Mary. Sisters Katrín and Signý wake up a little late (in versions B, ed. Jón Helgason 1962, 3:224, and E, 1965, 5:37),10 wash up and then set off onto the heath on their way to church, dressed in fine clothes. Halfway along the road, they meet a vallari, a tramp or wanderer, or “rover” to use an older English word that can mean both a wanderer and a thief (most of the Danish versions use the term Røver). In a detail confined to the Icelandic versions, the rover asks whether the young women might be elves (one never knows what sort of supernatural creature one might encounter on an Icelandic road) or even princesses (quite rare in Iceland, set apart from the Scandinavian monarchies). They give a Sunday answer, “Þorkels dætur erum við, / Maríukirkju þjónum við” (Thorkel's daughters are we, servants of the Church of Mary; st. 9).11 The rover quickly gives them a dire alternative, a variation on the usual highwayman's demand. Instead of “your money or your life,” he says in effect “your virginity or your life”: “Hvort viljið þið heldur láta ykkar líf / eða vera mitt eigið víf?” (Would you rather lose your life / or would you rather be my wife?; st. 10). Each sister considers this a hard choice, but they choose to die; the rover then obliges murderously with his tygilkníf, a little knife carried on a thong around his neck. Like the penknife of Scottish ballads (see below), it apparently is sufficient to the task (its smaller size makes it personal and phallic; nasty, brutish, and short). In Icelandic version B (Jón Helgason 1962, 3:225) the rover uses the same knife to cut from the sisters the lovely silken shirts they had taken out especially that morning for their journey; their handiwork was innocent, his disgraceful (háðug). He covers their bodies with a little dirt and then (and here is the legendary part) a light glows above their shallow graves (in versions H and I, ed. Jón Helgason 1968, 6:85 and 6:115, this event happens at the very end of the ballad).Presumably the rover does not notice the miraculous light as he takes off down the road and then arrives at Thorkell's farm, where little Ása (apparently the youngest sister) is reluctant to let anyone in through the door at night. But the rover picks the latch with his thin fingers, his thief's fingers, and then offers Ása a slightly different bargain: “Ása litla, sof hjá mér, / silkiserkinn gef eg þér” (Little Ása, sleep with me / a silken shirt I'll give to thee). In a classically ill-advised move, the thief thinks to use his newly acquired merchandise to purchase what he had previously sought to gain through violence; he attempts to bribe the young sister with the same clothes he got by killing the older sisters. Little Ása recognizes the shirts by their needlework (sauminn), goes to the greenwood to fetch her father, and announces the killing with childlike directness: “Heyrðu það, Þorkell faðir minn, / kominn er dætra baninn þinn” (Hear me, Thorkell, father mine / your daughters’ killer has come tonight; st. 26). The father, who apparently had been playing his harp when Ása brought him the bad news, throws it down so hard that its strings all burst apart. (In versions I and J, ed. Jón Helgason 1968, 6:115, st. 21 and 6:124, st. 19, Thorkell also upturns the table, spilling all the mead onto the floor.) Father Thorkel can get no joy from the harp (or the mead) and responds with the violence he feels toward his daughters’ murderer, who on the morrow is hanged high like the dog that he is.The Scottish ballads (Child 1957, no. 14) take a different narrative turn that may seem ill-considered, although it must have had its appeal.12 Three girls have set off to gather flowers when they meet a “banisht man” who asks, “It's whether will ye be a rank robber's wife, / Or will ye die by my wee pen-knife?” (version A, st. 5). He kills the first and second sister, but the third replies: “I'll not be a rank robber's wife,Nor will I die by your wee pen-knife. For I hae a brother in this wood, And gin ye kill me, it's he'll kill thee” (sts. 13–14).When asked, she says this brother's name is Baby Lon; in version 14C, she says: “My youngest brother's a banished lord, / And oftentimes he walks on this road” (st. 17). The banished man realizes he is the very brother of whom she speaks, that he has killed (two of) his own sisters, and so (in shame or despair) he takes his own life with his wee pen-knife. The irony here does not involve the fatal journey to church or the stolen clothes (both fine motifs in the Icelandic and Swedish versions), but rather, the man having unknowingly killed his own relations (presumably had he been unrelated to his victims, he would have wandered on cheerfully after killing them).Swedish versions of the ballad (about twenty-five in total in SMB), comparatively speaking, combine features found in the Icelandic and Scottish versions while expanding upon the legendary, Marian aspect. There are two or three daughters, so the collective title in SMB 47 is “Herr Töres’ döttrar” (Herr Töres's Daughters). The associated miracle is not a shining light but rather a spring welling up from under the daughters’ dead bodies; it leads to the establishment of the parish church at Kärna, near Linköping in Östergötland, a foundation traditionally assigned to the twelfth century (Broocman 1760, 208).13 The personnel varies; in version A, the wife's name is Karin; the three unnamed sisters are killed by three unnamed “Wallera” (robbers; see below). Presumably they had forced the sisters to respond to the same highwayman's demand, “be our wives or lose your lives” (part of stanza 8 is missing), to which the daughters reply incrementally: “Intett wilie wij wara wallerwj[f] / fast heller wilie wij mista wårtt Vnga lijff” (st. 9; We want not to be robber-wives / rather we would lose our young lives). The robbers chop off the heads of the girls and later reveal their deed to Fru Karin via the stolen clothing. Thöres (as he is called in version A, rather than Töre) kills two of them, but the third robber says his parents were Thöres and Karin from Vänge (the kinship motif, as in the Scottish versions), so Thöres spares him.14 He vows to a church, a more form of than in the Icelandic and Scottish versions. In SMB (Jonsson versions B, and the wife's name is in version E, the wife's name is The of version E, that or it has sometimes been taken to mean modern Swedish as in the of Bergman's A, and have a / was so / while the into This also makes its way into Bergman's film ballad translation that was published with Ulla Isaksson's Virgin Spring screenplay which has been taken to be an English translation of Isaksson and Bergman's source, some as a of the ballad It does not to any of the versions in the collection 1986, ed. no. Instead of three sisters is Karin; her is Karin is both and killed by the rather than of the are so the kinship is It has not been before that Bergman and screenplay writer Ulla Isaksson were a Swedish ballad version that had been or by Sverker in his Den svenska folkvisan of a which Bergman says he read at (as the church in had been for a Karin is and that to legend, the spring had from instead of three from three sisters number seems to modern a version where Karin is the the or to her where all the other versions mention three sisters. He also a stanza (st. to make the father Töre kill all three or the that the third rover is their He killed the first, and the second / And then the third he also some of his other in svenska on the of the Swedish He takes the from a then ballad and based on occasional for (e.g., that the version one reconstruction is and however, the Swedish versions all make it that are three Ek's version the for Isaksson's and Bergman's film, which then a and a (see further Ek's version is it from all ballad versions A, thus a of detail to the for church, Karin does not just on a as in version but also a silken (the work of as in version and lovely as in version these three so that Karin Karin Karin en Karin i Karin ville Karin on a silken was the handiwork of Karin on her the in Karin on her would she to effect in the film is to make her seem a and of a as some critics seem to might whether the screenplay and film are in any way by ballad and Isaksson said she how in the ballad “the out and against other and into The Virgin Spring “the of the first as a to the of the rape in the the third against the and in the The Virgin Spring the film's this from the to the then to the and to the these the in the first and third (with their to the identical by the in the second and Töre's morning and and Karin's in the also these the most of ballad however, has been called its toward and In Ek's stanza Töre's daughter she her clothes. The text on this for three (sts. with and then to the in the (st. The screenplay, on the other hand, most such a narrative and many of its changes are the of in the narrative in a modern and cinematic the not with Karin but with the up and their The time is and in the A the her on the is the first (Isaksson 1960, then to the that leads to the in the Töre and to the Christian (1960, The the of the some newly who then the and she must to church with the to the Virgin (1960, 10). the and a beggar come into the and at the they are goes out to Karin's a in the scene is a from the screenplay does not on the cut of or the then does up into Karin's to wake her up and her get the with which the ballad The screenplay and film on this while also providing some Karin to her Sunday even it is a take out my and my Sunday and my and then I'll be and be and father will be I will with such to the And will his so as he were in a and I'll look to my to my And of the and the of (Isaksson 1960, of in this Karin will instead from the and the will be by her and to Ek's particular ballad in the encounter with the three a rare for the The i bli / i mista (st. you as our / Or lose your young As we have in other versions of the ballad, the sisters choose before But version (st. as adapted by Ek, / (st. she the / she her young The their own both and killing young the film, the never such an it and that they to rape After their the screenplay says that Karin and up she a little with them in this The has its (Isaksson 1960, This is one of the more where Bergman does not the screenplay. Karin when she her version of her own but she does not and can be said to be and she is the But she to when the older in and the one the that one of the does not to the she that she knows they are not as they They and the boy throws the the that had in it their (and providing a to the Christian with the into the of a on her of Karin says: on my way to the church with the But the two older her from her her down (the boy onto her and rape Bergman from the screenplay, which says that “the boy to himself across her (Isaksson 1960, in the film, he is down the by his older and so does not in the will have an effect in the of the when Karin around in the more of the as Isaksson calls her on the of the with a and she In the source ballad, the off Karin's st. 14). The is both more and more from the the have been by the of The then her fine but not before the that Karin's to the Virgin with his in an of for the fact that the Virgin has not her with a in some more version of the ballad, Bergman and Isaksson make a number of as other critics have Steene 1968, It is that Bergman Isaksson other versions of the ballad, the the door on the as she does in Danish version (DgF 1895–1898, and the miracle at the end as in Danish version and some Icelandic versions (see rather than after the sister is placement makes more in my even to the 1962, is to let the miracle with the spring form the of the In the original (reprinted in the The Virgin Spring Ulla writes that “the ballad exists in but she may just be In 1968, Bergman refers to versions” of the Swedish ballad (Austin 1973, He also that in the version he read were daughters and which is an of the Swedish versions mention three sisters and three the sisters down to Karin is now the the has also taken in a dark-haired girl, who is and a for is rather than she calls on in the and an a while from Karin on their to Like the man in one is by a to the a the and he does not reveal his In both the and prose as by two and and for one when he it at in to gain 17). his name when among As another of the the on his have of and to the screenplay (Isaksson 1960, in a and Christian (as was the in and makes the film distinctive but also of the customary of Icelandic set on of the Icelandic in the when some to and to The Christian of the film has but to me is one of its more whose name is a version of is on the of and whose name is a version of from a version of to a more Karin is a of the Virgin (as as a but she with a the Marian miracle late to her any screenplay and film make something of a narrative from the rape and scene to the Karin and on their way to the the film has no to the journey along the same a to a is in of and not by the In the film more than the ballad, which takes two to the along the to the film from the boy dirt on Karin's and then off in the late to the at and the three outside the are to with the in another with the boy especially when he the same

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