Introduction

 

 

Instructions - Introduction

Bedienungsanleitungen - Einführung

 

General Introduction

A European Ballad Index

What is a "ballad type?"

Arrangement and Classification in organizing a ballad catalog and a ballad index.

Arrangement (the catalog and edition)

Classification (the index and thematic data base)

How to find a ballad [being basically notes and theory to the instructions]

Using Themes (the basic way)

Adding Elements and Aspects (drilling down)

Using Roles (an added dimension)

Using the "Register" and common terms [to ~leverage ~access to Themes]

Using the Freiburg Arrangement

[The structure and order of the catalog descriptions and examples] (per Freiburg number)

What you get when you have found something

The structure and contents of the individual ballad descriptionss

 

Short Instructions

 

Extensive Instructions

 

Instructs as links only

And here a pop-up

 

 

General Introduction

 

            This is a finding tool and a catalog of German narrative folk songs: German ballads.  Even though the finding tool and search engine are in other languages, the catalog itself (what you will have when you find something) will of necessity be in German.  This introduction will discuss first what a ballad type is, second how to find something and third the catalog in its structure and its constituent parts.  Basic and detailed finding instructions can be found here; this introduction is meant to provide background, and in discussing form and methodology in both catalog and finding strategies make using this undertaking more intuitive, nuanced and in particular more efficient.

 

            Ballads are narrative folk songs, but while melodies are (obviously) essential, they must needs-be take a back seat to the texts.  Melodies can reveal important connections between various performances, but these connections often lead in quite different directions as the texts' narratives do.  Pursuing both these "dimensions" at once would totally surpass the scope of this current project.  Texts are what tell the story, but texts (especially in the details) are more variable than the stories.  Many songs may share the commonplace beginning "Come all ye bold..." or "Come you fair..." to introduce unrelated narratives.  The one thing that all "ballads" have in common is narrative.  Thus, the present finding tool is based on the overarching, principal themes expressed in these different sung stories, irrespective of the particular choice of words in play.

 

            The ideal of a European Ballad Index was originally put forth for practical purposes by Rolf Wilhelm Brednich at the first "Arbeitstagung über Fragen des Typenindex der europäischen Volksballaden" in 1966 (first Working Meeting on Questions of the Type Index of European Folk Ballads), and was discussed vigorously in the "International Ballad Commission" (Société Internationale d'Ethnologie et de Folklore) up through the 36th "Arbeitstagung" in Freiburg, 2006, some 40 years later.  This catalog of German ballads employs two complementary approaches: a classificatory system which arranges whole ballad types for citation alongside a finding system using classifyied ballad themes which reference one or many individual ballad types.

 

            A "ballad type" for these purposes refers to a relatively coherent story plot presented with a relatively coherent "set of words" easily recognizable as being related.  For example, textually "Die Winterrosen" can begin with "Es wollt ein Mädchen Wasser holen" or "Es wollte ein Mädchen..." or "Es ging ein Mädchen..." or one of these combined with "frisch Wasser holen" or "nach Wasser gehen" or "Wasser schöpfen."  Or to give another example or coherent textual variations: "Es reit ein Herr mit sei'm Knecht..." compared with "Do reet sich ne Hear on sein Stolzknecht...".  Simularly in the Anglo-American traditions two of varying beginnings of Child 1 "Riddles Wisely Expounded" are obviously related textually: "There was a Lady in the North Country / Lay the Bent to the Bonny Broom" and There was a lady in the West / Lay the bank with the bonny broom." 

 

            In similar fashion the stories can vary to a larger or smaller degree and still be recognizable as "basically the same story."  In the "Winterrosen" the girl is fetching water when the wooing person (be he gentleman or knight) wants to sleep with her.  She sets him the task of bringing her three roses in the dead of winter (or vice versa). In some variants he finds them, sometimes he doesn't, sometimes he doesn't but gets a painter to paint him some, sometimes one or the other of them says it was only a joke so let's "have some fun" together.  Sometimes she sets him a further series of riddles.  Sometimes they happily stay together as a couple.  Sometimes he stabs her to death.  But all the variants share a large amount of text and story which shows they belong together as a ballad type. 

 

            In the Anglo-American tradition of Child 1, the devil, sometimes taken for a knight, threatens her with taking her to hell if she cannot answer various riddles.  In some variants she answers the questions and the devil admits defeat.  In others when she knows the answers but names him as the devil, he takes her to hell nevertheless.  Again there is a large amount of text and story which shows they belong together as a cohesive ballad type.

 

            While both the German and the Anglo-American traditions here are obviously quite different song types, nevertheless they share certain motifs or themes, chief among them being the posing of riddles as a test.  This was essentially the heart of the discussion concerning the construction of a European Ballad Index: the "Freiburg system" of arranging whole ballad types or a "Wilgus-Long system" using a classification of overarching common themes (called by them thematic or narrative "units") to access the ballads.

 

Arrangement and Classification.

 

<id"Arrangement">             To create an organized  system of arrangement in a Ballad Type Index, Rolf Wilhelm Brednich proposed a traditionally based system which came to be known as the "Freiburg System" (named after the location of the German Folksong Archive [Deutsches Volksliedarchiv], a major folklore institution).  That system would place whole ballads in individual categories, e.g. I: Magical-Mythical Ballads, II: Religious Narrative Songs, III: Love Ballads, IV: Family Ballads, V: Ballads of Social Conflict, VI: Historical Narrative Songs, VII: Ballads of Agonistic and Heroic Striving, VIII: Ballads about Strokes of Fortune and Catastrophes, IX: Human Cruelty, X Schwank/Fabliaux Ballads, XI: Ballads of Nature and the Cosmos. This system had the advantage of tapping traditions among folklore scholars, and - especially for users accustomed to the traditional categories of their own traditions - put "the song" in a category which made sense to them. 

 

            There were two major problems with that approach: 1) the classification of a certain ballad did not necessarily make as much sense to users outside that particular national tradition as to those within it; and 2) putting a whole ballad type in one category caused that ballad to be absent in other  categories, however relevant.  For instance, a ballad about family interference in a love affair might be placed in category III (Love) or alternatively in category IV (Family), but the ballad's whole point is that conflict between love and family, so that putting it in EITHER III OR in IV is both subjective and ignores half the ballad's story.  To take another example, a song about a wife entertaining a lover suddenly being accosted by her husband who beats her for it.  This ballad might be legitimately found in category III (Love) or category IV (Family), but instead it has been filed under category X (Schwank or Humorous Ballads).  Since it has been recovered in a particular style of humorous narrative (in song or story form) from the 14th or 15th century known to German scholars as a "Schwank" (in French "fabliaux"), assigning it to category X can make perfect sense — but at the same time that categorization hides the ballad from anyone not familiar with German Schwänke, or who with more modern sensibilities would find neither a "side love affair" nor a thorough beating especially "humorous."

 

            Using this mixture of arranging whole ballads according to story line, style, and/or cast of characters is useful to organizing a list for a printed catalog or a folk song edition, but it is less servicable in providing a finding mechanism.  To that end I have used the Freiburg System (as I found it as a work-in-progress in the Deutsches Volksliedarchiv) as a "to-do" list and as a convenient arrangement for my catalog of ballad descriptions here.

 

            The other approach to creating a finding index to the ballads for scholars and singers is to use a system based on a classification of the ballads' narrative themes, that is, to use common, traditional elements in their stories.  By definition, every ballad has a story, after all.  Thus, this approach engages narrative to access individual narrative songs or groups of songs of whatever  style, age or intent.  The placing of some whole song entry in a listing of ballad typess can then be relatively arbitrary.

 

            These common narrative ideas use varying wording and varying details to express recurring themes in many ballads.  This index uses themes[1], not words, that is, it uses the meanings expressed in the songs' texts, not any specific textual details.  What does a "kiss" mean?  It depends on what it means within the context of this or that ballad type: a kiss can mean romance (110: Courtship), it can mean betrayal (245: Mores and Morals), and it can mean identifying someone (810: Discovery) or rendering them over to the authorities (910: Accusations).  In the case of Judas all of the last three themes would apply together (245 + 810 + 910).  And the ballad could be found with a search based on any single one or any combination of these themes.  Thus, the question about that kiss is easily resolved by considering how it functions within the narrative. 

 

            The Themes express how this or that ballad action functions within its narrative.  Sometimes a single kind of action (for example 650: killing) can be associated with violating society's morals (245.a: Mores and Morals.transgressed), i.e. as murder, and later associated with punishment or retribution (960: Retribution and Revenge). (What I call the "ironic reduplication" like this actually happens quite a bit.)

 

            I developed the Themes inductively out study of hundreds of ballad types encompassing many thousands of individual variants.  Numerous situations showed themselves to be common narrative elements, expressed in commonplaces as well as in myriad individual textual formulations.  What a narrative made of the actions responding to (or causing) these common situations, yielded the various overarching story themes: ideas abstracted from what "actually happens" detailed concretely in the ballad story, but nonetheless in ideas so familiar that they immediately make sense. 

 

For instance, in the ballad group surrounding "Das Versteinerte Brot" [Bread Turned to Stone, here catalog number 05.A1b-03] one or several rich sisters or brothers refuse a sister (maybe widowed and with one or many children) who are starving (and maybe by them dispossessed) even a loaf of bread (or grain, or in some cases something else; or because she needs it to feed her animals); in some cases the sister dies "on stage", the rich sister (etc.) return home, and upon their cutting their own loaf of bread it bleads blood or is turned to stone; in some cases the rich sister offers them bread and begs the poor one for forgiveness; the poor one answers something like: no, God has provided for them; the children say God has taken them to safety; or the sister's house bursts into flames, etc. etc.).  In spite of all the variations in just the one song (200 variants, widespread geographically), it is plain that here we have (at least) Themes of:

580: Disability in the form of grinding poverty,

220: Kinship Responsibilities betrayed,

152: Help in the form of tangibles denied;

245: Outrageous, Heinous Crimes ("Frevel"),  and

960: Punishment

These Themes "grow" organically out of the comparison of individual ballad variants housed in the Deutsches Volksliedarchiv, as well as my more informal familiarity with my own Angle-American tradidion.  The results do not clash with anything I am familiar with in the Mexican, Spanish, French or Scandinavian traditions (although I am less versed in these).

 

            The thematic classification by subject in a thesaurus collects and organizes these traditional narrative concerns.  The classification in the thesaurus enables a systematic, logical and thorough search of the ballad data base.  For instance, organizing a tryst, kissing, meeting at the well or a dance — all these point to the theme of courtship (110).  Since the themes (e.g., 110: Courtship) index ("tag") ballads from all over the spectrum expressing that narrative idea, one can find and compare any number of songs about that subject.  Combining a search for "110: Courtship" with other themes (e.g., "210: Opposition to Courtship") allows both more precise focussing our searches as well as enriching our possible analytical approaches. 

 

            The advantage of thematic classification is that it brings songs together where they belong together and separates them where they diverge.  In all variants of the "Ulinger" ballad Ulinger, the seducer lures her off (110), and betrays her (245).  In some variants he succeeds in killing her (650); in some she is able to turn the tables (490) and trick him (440) so she can kill (650) her prospective murderer first; in some her brother can arrive in time and rescue her (151) by killing Ulinger (650); while in yet other versions the brother is too late but kills (650) Ulinger in revenge (960).  Thus, some variants of the Ulinger cycle are typical "murdered girl ballads," like the American "Rose Connelly," "Knoxville Girl" or "Banks of the Ohio:" (110 + 245 + 650), while other variants of "Ulinger" differ significantly in the rescue and the style of punishment (if any).

 

            The thematic classification is organized hierarchically into 11 major thematic groups. 

100 ff.   OFFERS, REQUESTS, DEMANDS

Freely made without being particularly motivated by existing personal relationships, although often interpersonal relationships arise out of these actions: seductions, requests for mercy, hiring

200 ff.   OBLIGATIONS, COMMITMENTS, EXPECTATIONS

Based on existing personal relationships or "reasonable" expectations arising out of such relationships (such as family, romantic or occupational relationships)

300 ff.   DEPARTURES, QUESTS

Leaving, going elsewhere, for some purpose, either voluntary, necessitated or enforced.

400 ff.   CONTESTS (physical or psychological, etc.)

Competition (sometimes in game form) for hegemony (often no-holds-barred), ranging from tricks to war.

500 ff.   JOURNALISTIC ACCOUNTS, ORDEALS, ADVERSITY

Adventures, events, ordeals, adversity, so-called "true occurrences" or "amazing things," often happenings in a series, sometimes leaning more towards the descriptive than to the narrative.

600 ff.   DEATH AND DISASTER

Death, killing, serious damage, accidents, harm, disasters, catastrophes, whether intentional or not.

700 ff.   SOCIAL EVENTS

Largely public, social events and incidents involving groups.

800 ff.   DISCOVERIES, INFORMATION AND CONNECTIONS

Information and connections between individuals, real or false, intentional, forced or accidental; questions and answers.

900 ff.   JUSTICE, RIGHT AND REVENGE

Serving "justice" from the ballad's perspective, be it legal, extralegal, personal, institutional, poetic or divine.

 

 

000 ff.   METAPHORICAL SONG NARRATIVES

In which the "meaning" of the ballad is understood but not directly stated by the narrative text.  (Like the Robert Johnson blues about "malted milk" actually being about liquor during Prohibition.)

 

            Each of these major categories has a series of themes which have been used to classify the ballads in this catalog.  Under cartegory 100, for instance, one can find:

 

110 Courtship & Seduction I (among lovers)

115 Erotic Encounters and Acts

120 Courtship II (lovers vis-à-vis family or "others")

125 Promises & Vows

150 Helping Hand (Mercy, Help, Rescue, Intercession, Advice)

151 Helping Hand — Actions: help, assistance, intercession, rescue

152 Helping Hand — Tangibles: aid, succor (material)  

153 Helping Hand — Compassion, Mercy, Pity, Forgiveness, Release

154 Helping Hand — Simple Demand for Justice

155 Helping Hand — Permission

156 Helping Hand — Advice & Warning

157 Helping Hand — Companionship

170 Deals, Wagers, Bargains, Contracts, Indemnity, Plans

180 Hiring, Enlisting, Workers and Bosses

 

In all, there are about 80 Themes which have been used to classify (tag) the ballads in this catalog.  The complete list can be viewed here or through the pull-down menus on the search page.  Or consult the Overview.

 

            These are all the user needs to search for a ballad or a group of ballads related through their stories.  However, to aid in the thematic classification and retrieval of the ballads, I have also tracked certain thematic details, which I am calling narrative elements, and aspects (see below).

 

 

            Narrative Elements are common, recurring narrative actions which are more "motival" than the level of the Themes, and yet are at a "higher", more abstract, level than particular textual formulations.  These are the kinds of actions that repeatedly occur in the ballads, however they are worded, and which actions embody a particular Theme.

 

            While the Narrative Elementss are essentially descriptive, the Themes are essentially classificatory, sorting ballads by their underlying themes, their basic ideas, not their particular textual-motival (choice-of-word) variations.  Ballads expressing similar basic ideas can thus be considered together, even across linguistic or national boundaries.

 

            Aspects indicate major variations on a Narrative Element.  For instance, there all sorts of requests and demands present in the ballads, but it can make a world of difference whether the request is granted or denied, whether the demand is met or not, whether the departure is voluntary or involuntary, whether someone is recognized or not (or erroneously). 

 

            Finally, there are two groups in the classificatory thesaurus which somewhat deviate from the others in that they are not entirely action-based: the Metaphorical Narratives and the Role Relations amongst the dramatis personae.  The Metaphorical Narratives (001 through 005) reflect the fact that sometimes the actions in the narrative refer to something understood rather than be referenced directly.  The nightingale or other bird in "Nachtigal als Warnerin" preserves its freedom from being dominated or bought.  Implied can either be that the girl should preserve her virginity, or that one should assert one's freedoms in the face of political dominance.  Ofttimes these metaphorical meanings are more implicitly accessible to the bearers of the tradition than to outsiders.  A classification strictly according to the text would entirely miss the point.  The song about the tinker's "fixing" all her "pots" is certainly not just about his repairing kitchenware; and that is the point of the song.

 

            Role Relationships, the other differing classification category, is based on the relationships amongst the ballad's cast of characters.  While the lion's share of the classification is based on actions, this last group is based on the generic roles played by the ballad actors, the ballad's dramatis personae to structure the ballad's narrative.  This group is based on the folkloristic principal of "variable agent - stable function."  It makes no difference if the figure acting as a lover or potential lover is a cowboy, a sailor, a nobleman or a farmer: if he acts like a "lover," or is seen as such: he or she embodies that role of "Lover."  Likewise if the ballad figure acts in the capacity of a family member, they are to be categorized (tagged if you will) as "Family."  Just as among the action themes, no role relationship excludes another: the murderous innkeeper who murderes his unrecognized son engages both the roles of Family and Wrongdoer, while the son is both Family and Victim.  And both — as innkeeper and guest — are also in an "Economic" relationship.  These role relationships do not necessarily have to be reciprocal.  If the nobleman proposes a roll in the hay to the milkmaid, there is a potential love relationship which influences the ballad's action, irrespective of whether the maid accepts or not.  In this case the nobleman is a Lover in any case; the milkmaid may also be a Lover (she says "yes"), or she may be a "Victim" (she says "no, don't).  Glosses to the various role relationships can be found in the pull down menus (search page), or the Complete List of Themes and Roles.

 

look at Complete and Ganz note to Roles, and Ganz second part of G Zufallsfiguren.  Meld and probably insert here in the Intro 2.  Or some "Detailed Instructions"

This info should be more minimalistic in the Complete Lists and perhaps revised in the General Instructions on SearchPage.

 

 

Exkurs: The conceptualization of thematic clasification for a European Ballad Index: Wilgus, Long and Engle

 

Building on the work of D.K. Wilgus and Eleanor Long, 

 

 

I analyzed thousands of variants from hundreds of German ballad types in the Deutsches Volksliedarchiv to develop a collection of common plot ideas.

 

 

In this work I also utilized my knowledge of my own Anglo-American ballad tradition, as well as several Europen or American traditions in order to increase the relevance of the present system internationally.  For instance, a theme of the lovers' courting (theme 110 might be expressed with "walking and talking", meeting in the garden or the woods, behind the castle wall or at the village well.  A theme of dying might be worded as hearing the death bells, being sick to death, or even by the reappearance of someone in the song as a ghost.  All these wordings or details would suggest the theme of 630: Death.  Wilgus and Long called these ideas "narrative units," while I have moved from calling them "thematic units" to simply "themes," for that is what they are.  The themes are labels for narrative ideas told by means of differing texts.  It matters little if someone is killed by knife, neglect, sword, poison, drowning or accident: 650: killing is the theme.  And, as in real life, themes can combine freely with each other.  In the American "Murdered Girl Pattern" "he" kills "her" (by stabbing or poising or drowning or all three as 650: killing) in a betrayal of her trust and of common morality (245.a).  Sometimes the murderer is caught and punished (maybe just 960: punishment and maybe also another 650: killing if it's capital punishment).  Similarly in the German tradition, Ulinger (or Ulrich) kills the girl he has abducted (650, 245.a) but her brother arrives and kills Ulinger (650, 245.b), the second killing being the upholding of common moral understandings, which is also a revenge or punishment (960).  Thus, one can see by the combination of themes how similar the two traditions can be.

 

Detritus:

The themes are classified in a thesaurus which collects and organizes traditional narrative concerns.  The classification in the thesaurus enables a systematic, logical and thorough search of the data base.

 

            The advantage of thematic classification is that it brings songs together where they belong together and separates them where they diverge.  In some variants of the Ulinger ballad Ulinger succeeds in killing her; in some she is able to turn the tables (490) and trick (440) him so she can kill her prospective murderer first (650).

 

There has to be a better example - here tricking is also lying as in the kidnapping

probably go to Eifersüchtiger Knabe.

 

The disadvantage is that it seems more complicated.  Themes are not building blocks.  Many have "aspects" .a or .b wherein the theme recurrs but with a different "sign" or outsome.  See 245 and 650: 245.a + 650 is murder, while 245.b + 650 can "spell" "escape" or "revenge"

 

 

How to find a ballad

 

 

 

Beispiel: Finde Winterrosen.  Irgendwie weiß ich, dass es um ein Liebesangebot handelt, und dass es eine um eine scheinbare unmögliche Aufgabe handelt, die der Freier unerwarteterweise durch einen Trick lösen kann.  Also suche ich nach 110:Verführung und Werbung, 410: Verbales Konkurrieren; plus 440: Tricks, Täuschungen, Unterstellungen, Listen, Fallen, Lügen.  Diese Kombination findet 7 Balladen, unter denen die "Winterrosen" sich befinden.

 

What you will get when you find something

The structure and order of the catalog (per Freiburg number)
The structure and contents of the individual ballad descriptionss