creepy folk songs

[thanate]

So I was looking at versions of "The Elfin Knight" from the Child Ballads... and most of them are fairly straightforward, where the young woman rather foolishly wishes the knight, sight unseen, were in her arms and when he appears by her bed (and often they have a dialogue about how he thinks she's awfully young, but she says she's got a younger sister who's married already) he gives her a set of impossible tasks, and she gives him back another set and thus gets to keep her maidenhead, which apparently she's decided she wants after all. (Admittedly, there's the folkloric implication of the stealing of souls or something if she doesn't outwit him.) Ok, so then there's the version with this bit, instead:

‘I hae a sister eleven years auld,
And she to the young men’s bed has made bauld.
‘And I mysell am only nine,
And oh! sae fain, luve, as I woud be thine.’

er? I'd start posing impossible tasks at that point, too.

Then there's the one heuchera and I turned up once and were not sure whether to be amused or horrified by: beware, it sings at you (although the best verse, about "if I can't have a man then I'll have to get a parrot" isn't in here)

Comments

[skittblink.livejournal.com]

Ahhhhhhhhhh. That's horrific.