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Two Sisters – Addendum 1

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Sheila Kay Adams is a keeper of songs and stories that stretch back hundreds of years, and an American treasure.  Most folkies know her name, but if you’re not familiar with her and you’re developing a love for traditional American music, you need to get familiar with her work.


In researching “Two Sisters” over the past six months, I’ve run across the following recently recorded YouTube videos of her performance of the ballad. She remembered the song from her childhood in Sodom, North Carolina where she grew up among relatives who represented perhaps the richest surviving native ballad tradition at that time in the country.


I finally took the time to transcribe the lyrics, and this performance is really a gem!  As I recently pointed out, I’m no folklorist, but this variant seems to me to represent a missing link between the “Two Sisters / Bow and Balance” variant that has no magical retribution, and the “Wind and Rain” variant that has the magic, but no back story behind the younger sister’s murder.

It’s in two parts-     Here are the lyrics for the version, which are a *must read*!

 

 
 
Where do we start?  I’d love to hash some of this out in comments below if you’re willing.
 
– This is perhaps the most fully developed narrative of any version I know, including the British ones!
 
– The gore in this one is so matter of fact – delightfully so even – you can see that this is a variant developed by hard, tough people.
 
– I love the interplay about the miller and his wife.
 
– Whoever wrote this really rationalized the typical elements that require a suspension of disbelief.  Particularly, to go from drowned corpse to bones and hair so quickly, there is a boiling off of the flesh.  As well, to make realistic the drowning in the ocean but showing up in a stream, the movement of the body upstream by the tides is made explicit.  Fascinating!
 
Please do engage below if you wish.
 
 I’ll have one more addendum when I finish the interview that will make up the content for a post on the new short movie “Two Sisters.”
 
(Here’s a list of the previous posts if you want to go back.)
 
Thanks for reading this week! 
 
1. Two Sisters / Wind and Rain – Basic introduction to the ballad’s historical context and three main variants (the two in the link title, plus “Binnorie”.)
2. I’ll Be True Unto My Love – A helpful, detailed way to think about the folk process and how it can create so many diverse variants of a ballad like Child 10.
3. Bow and Balance to Me – My conclusions and personal reactions to the three variants, and some speculation about jealousy, flirtation, and the role of the refrains in the “Two Sisters” variant.
4. Two Sisters Redux – Part 1 –  A sampler of excellent examples of variants I did not consider in my first posts, including “Cruel Sister”, “The Bows of London”, and various Scots examples such as “The Swan Swims so Bonny O”.
5. Two Sisters Redux – Part 2 – A sampler of excellent examples of “Two Sisters” and “Wind and Rain” variants, and an unsatisfactory look at the origins of both.
6. Sometimes she sank, sometimes she swam – A broad conclusion that tries to get the big picture.
 
 

Related posts:

  1. Cold Rain and Snow – Introduction
  2. “Two Sisters” at the Movies, with Anthony Ladesich
  3. Sometimes she sank, sometimes she swam…
  4. Two Sisters Redux – Part 2

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