In the introductory post for the week, we learned that Child 10, the ballad commonly known as “Two Sisters“, is in fact quite old, with Scandinavian roots stretching back perhaps a thousand years.  We saw great diversity among the versions we listened to, which perhaps emerged / diverged somewhere in the 17th to 19th centuries, as suggested in part by that fateful beaver hat.


In the follow up post, we explored a way to think about what we generally call the ‘folk process’ in more detail, using a scholar’s framework that breaks traditional singers into four types according to the way in which they ‘handle’ a ballad creatively.  My intent here is to apply that framework (in an admittedly loose way) to understand the diversity we saw in our examples.


Let’s walk back down through what we’ve heard and add basic summaries for reference.

The Golden Stairs – Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, 1880

The Bonnie Mill Dams O’ Binnorie by Jock Duncan of Scotland tells the story in the most complete form we sampled.  It details the origins of the eldest sister’s jealousy, her drowning of her  younger sister, the discovery of the younger’s body in a mill pond, the use of her hair by a musician to string his harp, and the ‘magical retribution’ wherein the younger sister’s spirit possesses the instrument and reveals the eldest’s crime at her wedding to the usurped lover.


Two Sisters by Clannad drops the ‘magical retribution’ of “Binnorie” entirely, and develops the details surrounding the elder sister’s jealousy.  The drowning as well is described richly, and a ‘bonus crime’ is added in that the miller pulls the drowning girl from his pond, but then takes her ring and pushes her in again!  Both the elder sister and the miller are executed for their crimes, but there is no detail given as to how they were caught.  There Lived and Old Lord by Jean Ritchie is an American version that deviates from this narrative only slightly.  (See my later post for much more about this variant, as well as the next.)


Wind and Rain by Gillian Welch  represents a divergence from “Binnorie” as well, with its main focus on the drowning and the ‘magical retribution’.  Instead of using only strands of the dead girl’s hair, here we see the musician building an entire fiddle out of her bones, and using her hair to make the bow.  Dreadful Wind and Rain by Jerry Garcia and David Grisman is cut from the same cloth, with some interesting differences in phrasing.  (For fun, let me add Kilby Snow’s version here -with lyrics- and ask you to consider, if you want, whether or not it belongs.)


(I’ve got one more new one to lay on you, but I’m saving what I think is the best for last!)


Anyway, here’s the fine point. We have an old, whole narrative ballad cut into independent halves that both work quite well in their truncated forms.  (Obviously some ‘integrators’ along the way wielded the cleaver.)  But the best we can know as the ‘complete’ story *also* survives as a ballad into the 20th century. Jock Duncan sings it into a microphone.  (See this later post for several examples of variant families not included here.)


Why then do we see what  is clearly an earlier divergence into at least two separate ballad groups, but the original also surviving?  We can answer “Hey, that’s the way the folk process rolls…” and be correct, but Long-Wilgus’s framework gives us a way to articulate more.


Versions like Duncan’s it seems to me best represent the work of ‘perseverators’, who try to pass the ballad on in a pure form.  Purity is of course impossible, as errors creep in for any number of reasons.  But we amateurs needn’t be too picky about it, and should consider that the narrative  Duncan uses is in broad strokes that which Francis Child identified as the one common to both Scandinavia and Britain.  It’s a step up a stairway that may be a thousand stories high;  I respect that deeply.  I’m awed by it.  But, frankly, it’s not what I find most compelling.


Neither am I most moved by the versions we can group as “Wind and Rain.” I love the music; don’t get me wrong.  But these strike me generally as the work (probably more recent) of ‘confabulators’, worked over and tweaked to create something entertaining above all.  When I play it for my middle school students, they often say it reminds them of Halloween.  At first they think its creepy, then they realize that they like that it’s creepy!  Fiddle pegs made of finger bones?  Come on, that’s great stuff! But, like The Golden Stairs above, I get the sense that “Wind and Rain” doesn’t quite *mean* anything, and that rather it was ‘painted’ to evoke a mood for the listener. That’s totally cool, and at times it’s just right for me. But often I want more.

Jealousy and Flirtation – Haynes King, 1874       King was British, and “Binnorie” was a well-known English folktale and otherwise widely known as the ballad we’ve been discussing.  I wonder if it inspired or informed this?

“Two Sisters” as represented by Clannad and Jean Ritchie is deeply complex.  It strikes me as a combination of morality play and violent entertainment, courting song and warning song.  (Here are the lyrics for reference.)  I go in for the ‘rationalizers’ on this one


I mentioned in my introductory post that this variant of “Two Sisters” seems an awful lot like a modern crime drama.  It is both didactic and entertaining, and that’s no accident.  The moral outline is sharply drawn.  The crimes are heinous, and justice is satisfyingly swift.  And the audience gets to linger on the terrible imagery, though never too long because of the commercials, er, I mean refrains.


Weird, I know; but those refrains I think are what makes things work in “Two Sisters.”   They help mediate the violence of the song, but it seems to me their primary purpose is to warn young women about ‘jealousy and flirtation’. I see clearly that they are in a woman’s voice, and neither scolding nor stark.  Nonetheless, it’s their relationship to the narrative which makes me see them as a warning.


“Sing ay dum, Sing ay day” is obviously a traditional Anglo/Celtic rhythmic refrain, but “the boys are bound/born for me”  and “I’ll be true unto my love, if he’ll be true to me” are clearly suggestive of courting and young love.  Likewise, “bow your bend to me” suggests dance, as Jean Ritchie points out in her Folk Songs of the Southern Appalachians.  Another version uses “bow and balance to me” which is more clear.


The juxtaposition of the moral drama of the narrative and the whimsical sexuality of the refrains seems like it should be jarring, but it just isn’t.  Certainly the lightness of the tune helps with that, but I feel that it’s also the implied relationship between the two elements that really fixes them together.  Jealousy and flirtation are inextricably linked, as we all know from hard experience.  


Well, maybe you don’t know it, if you’re young and/or foolish.  But we’ve got a long line of singers here that can paint a picture for you of just how badly that story can end.


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Well, that’s it for now, except for one more sample.  My current favorite version of “Two Sisters” is performed by none other than Tom Waits!  My God folks, there’s something about his voice in this song.  He gets his version from Horton Barker.  (I’ll link his too for comparison, and you can see if Waits confabulates, if you’re not ready to cry ‘Uncle!’)


The thing about this one?  While it’s clearly in the same variant family as Clannad’s and Jean Ritchie’s, the older sister in this one gets away with it!  She gets Willy and his land, frames the miller for the drowning, and watches him hang. The perfect crime.  Oh, and the drowned girl gets a name.


I ain’t ashamed to admit it; sometimes this one can make me cry.   (Thanks for reading folks!)