Thu, 22 Aug 96 08:55:08 EDT X-Sender: wade@gc1.pmc.uconn.edu Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" To: ballad-l@indiana.edu From: wade@pmc.uconn.edu (Wade Tarzia) Subject: Re: A ballad for librarians/plus the "hag" motif Sender: owner-ballad-l@indiana.edu Precedence: bulk Status: RO X-Status: >HANDIER NINETY THAN NINETEEN YEARS OLD > > Oh, as I was a-walking way down by the strand > I espied a fair damsel so handsome and grand [ snip] --- Curious and curiouser -- do such songs form a song-type? This seems to be a reversal of an old motif from at least medieval times, in which man (usually a knight?) marries a hag knowingly but she later turns into a beautiful woman because of his honesty in fulfilling some terms in marrying the hag, etc. Now here our young fella becomes penalized for NOT having sex before marriage nor insisting on inspecting his bride as if she were livestock! (Honest to Gawd, men just can't win no matter what they do. ;-)) Also the ballad reminds me of _Utopia_, in which the men and women *do* inspect each other before marriage. (Was Moore also reacting to the medieval motif, or an early version of this ballad, I wonder?) -- yours in would-be balladry