The Twa Sisters

Ballads (1882-1898),' been found in England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland. Equally popular with the Scandinavians, the ballad had also appeared in Danish, Icelandic, Norwegian, Fair6e, Swedish, and Finnish versions. In the first half of this century, ballad scholars were giving considerable critical attention to this ballad, especially to the relationship between the variants. Lutz Mackensen summarised these variants, and those of the closely related folktale known as Singing Bone' (AT 780), in his study, Der singende Knochen, published in 1923.2 Archer Taylor discussed the English version of the ballad and its relationship to its American counterpart in English, Scottish, and American Versions of Twa Sisters,'3 and came to the conclusion that the American versions were derived exclusively from the English. Harbison Parker's study, 'The Twa Sisters'L-Going Which Way?' (1951), 4 proved important in providing alternatives to previously established belief (in Knut Leistol's 'Dei tvo systar' in 1909)' that the ballad originated in Britain, and travelled from there to Scandinavia in two separate traditions. For the most part, these scholars concentrated on variants of the ballad in verse form. But in their common search for an Ur-form, they looked ultimately to the tale that appeared to be the source of the ballad. Paul Brewster, in 1953, produced a complete survey of both the song and the tale.6 In 1977, Tristram Potter Coffin, in his The British Traditional Ballad in North America,' brought to our attention the large number of American story variations of this song. More recently, Roger de V. Renwick, in his structural/semiological study, English Folk Poetry: Structure and Meaning (1980),8 considered the ballad in terms of its signifiers: the setting of the river, the plot element of the victim floating down the stream, etc., and showed how these 'codes' brought Twa Sisters' within the ballad cluster surrounding the popular English ballad, Bold Fisherman.' These studies show that Twa Sisters' either in verse or in tale form, continues to be an ongoing tradition. The popularity of the story of the two sisters, and its adaptability to a range of cultures, is attested to by the appearance of a variant among the storytellers of the Santals, a tribal group in West Bengal, India. The story, a variant of Aarne and Thompson type 780, was collected in 1891 by A. Campbell9 in the district of Manbhum, from Santal storytellers. Story of Two Princesses,' the Santal tale version of Child B, incorporates the traditional features of the ballad: the attraction of the older sister's lover to the beautiful younger sister, the death of the younger sister, the transformation of her body into a musical instrument, and the mysterious song that issues from the instrument, revealing the secret of her death. The Santal story, however, encodes these in a way that is different from either the European or the American versions, so that they become particularly meaningful within the structure of Santal tribal society. The import of the song's message shifts away

Art · Ballad · Folklore · Genealogy · Literature · Poetry · Folklore, Mythology, and Literature Studies · History

• The music of dead sisters

  Cheryl Stobie•Critical Arts•2014

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• The types of the folktale

  Antti Amatus Aarne•The types of the folktale•1961

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• English Folk Poetry

  Open Access•Eleanor R Long, Roger Dev Renwick•Western Folklore•1982

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• "The Twa Sisters". Going Which Way

  Harbison Parker•Journal of American Folklore•1951

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• The English, Scottish, and American Versions of the 'Twa Sisters

  Archer Taylor•Journal of American Folklore•1929

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