"The Two Sisters" is a murder ballad that recounts the tale of a girl drowned by her sister. It is first known to have appeared on a broadside (music) in 1656 as "The Miller and the King's Daughter." At least 21 English variants exist under several names, including "Minnorie" or "Binnorie", "The Cruel Sister", "The Wind and Rain", "Two Sisters", and the "Bonnie Bows of London". The ballad was collected by Francis J. Child (Child 10) and is also listed in the Roud Folk Song Index (Roud 8). Murder ballads are a specific subgenre of the broadsheet ballad, a narrative poem that tells a tale of murder. ... Printed lyrics of folk songs were extremely popular from the 16th century until the early 20th century. ... // Events Mehmed Köprülü becomes Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire. ... Francis James Child (February 1, 1825 - September 11, 1896), was an American scholar and educationist, and collector of what came to be known as the Child Ballads. ... The Child Ballads are a collection of 305 ballads from England and Scotland, and their American variants, collected by Francis James Child. ... The Roud Folk Song Index is a database of 143,000 references to over 5,900 songs that have been collected from oral tradition in the English language from all over the world. ...

Synopsis

Two sisters go down by a body of water, sometimes a river and sometimes the sea. The older one pushes the younger in and refuses to pull her out again; generally the lyrics explicitly state her intent to drown her younger sister. Her motive, when included in the lyrics, is sexual jealousy--in some variants, the sisters are being two-timed by a suitor; in others, the elder sister's affections are not encouraged by the young man. In a few versions, a third sister is mentioned, but plays no significant role in events. In most versions, the older sister is described as dark, while the younger sister is fair.

When the murdered girl's body floats ashore, someone makes a musical instrument out of it, generally a harp or a fiddle, with a frame of bone and the girl's "long yellow hair" (or "golden hair") for strings. The instrument then plays itself and sings about the murder. In some versions, this occurs after the musician has taken it to the family's household, so that the elder sister is publicly revealed (sometimes at her wedding to the murdered girl's suitor) as the murderess.

It should be noted that the variant titled The Two Sisters typically omits the haunted instrument entirely, ending instead with an unrelated person (often a miller) executed for robbing the murdered girl's corpse and the elder sister presumably going unpunished.

Parallels in other languages

The theme of this ballad was common in many northern European languages.^[1] There are 125 different variants known in Swedish alone. Its general Scandinavian classification is TSB A 38; and it is (among others) known as Den talende strængelek or De to søstre (DgF 95) in Danish, Hørpu ríma (CCF 136) in Faroese, Hörpu kvæði (IFkv 13) in Icelandic, Dei tvo systar in Norwegian, and De två systrarna (SMB 13) in Swedish. It has also spread further south; for example, as Gosli iz človeškega telesa izdajo umor (A Fiddle Made from a Human Body Reveals a Murder) in Slovenian. The Types of the Scandinavian Medieval Ballad (TSB) classifies (in principle) all types of traditional ballader known in one of more of the Scandinavian languages (i. ... Danmarks gamle Folkeviser is a collection of (in principal) all known texts and recordings of the old Danish popular ballads. ... Sveriges Medeltida Ballader is an edition of all Swedish medieval ballads, produced by Svenskt Visarkiv. ...

In the Norse variants, the older sister is depicted as dark and the younger as fair, often with great contrast, comparing the one to soot or the other to the sun or milk. This can inspire taunts from the younger about the older's looks.^[2]

In most of the Norwegian and some of the Swedish variants, the story ends by the instrument being broken and the younger sister coming alive again.^[3] In a few, she was not actually drowned, but saved and nursed back to health; she tells the story herself.^[4]

This tale is also found in prose form, in fairy tales such as The Singing Bone, where the siblings are brothers instead of sisters.^[5] This is wide-spread throughout Europe; often the motive is not jealousy because of a lover, but the younger child's success in winning the object that will cure the king, or that will win the father's inheritance.^[6] The Singing Bone is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm, tale number 28. ...

In Polish literature from the romanticism period, a similar theme is found in Balladyna (1838) by Juliusz Słowacki. Two sisters engage in a raspberry-gathering contest to decide which of them gets to marry Prince Kirkor. When the younger Alina wins, the older Balladyna kills her. Finally, she is killed by a lightning in an act of divine punishment. Romantics redirects here. ... | Jöns Jakob Berzelius, discoverer of protein 1838 was a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar). ... Juliusz SÅ‚owacki. ... Cultivated raspberries The raspberry (plural, raspberries) is the edible fruit of a number of species of the genus Rubus. ... Not to be confused with lighting. ...

Connections to other ballads

At least one variant of this ballad ("Cruel Sister") uses the refrain from another traditional ballad, "Riddles Wisely Expounded" (Child 1). "Lay the bent to the bonny broom", the main phrase of the refrain, is a variant title of that ballad. A refrain (from the Old French refraindre to repeat, likely from Vulgar Latin refringere) is the line or lines that are repeated in music or in verse; the chorus of a song. ... Riddles Wisely Expounded is Child ballad 1. ... The Child Ballads are a collection of 305 ballads from England and Scotland, and their American variants, collected by Francis James Child. ...

Canadian singer and harpist Loreena McKennitt's song "The Bonny Swans" is a pastiche of several traditional variants of the ballad. The first stanza mentions the third sister, but she subsequently disappears from the narrative. In the music video we see her after the first stanza, but she is not mentioned in the words. Loreena McKennitt live on stage Loreena McKennitt, C.M. (b. ... The Bonny Swans is a track from Canadian musican Loreena McKennitts 1994 album, The Mask and Mirror. ...

Versions

• Joseph Jacobs recast in fairy tale form as part of English Fairy Tales (1890).^[7]
• Pentangle released their album Cruel Sister in 1970, the title track being a rendition of this ballad.
• Clandestine (The Haunting), Ceoltoiri, Ekova (Space Lullabies and Other Fantasmagore) and Old Blind Dogs (Close To The Bone) have all released versions under the title Cruel Sister.
• Patricia C. Wrede retold it as Cruel Sisters in her Book of Enchantments (1996), telling it from the point of view of the third sister, and giving it a revisionist twist.
• The Celtic group Rù-Rà, consisting of Gaelic singer Maggie Carchrie and keyboardist/percussionist Thomas Leigh, recorded a version of the song on their album "Rù-Rà" entitled "Two Sisters"
• The Danish band Sorten Muld's song '2 Søstre' ('Two Sisters' in English), the English translation of which recounts this folktale.
• Finnish folk music group Gjallarhorn has a Swedish version titled 'Systrarna' ('The Sisters') on their most recent album, Rimfaxe.
• The Swedish group Folk & Rackare recorded a Swedish version, De två systrarna, on their album Folk och rackare from 1976.
• The Irish group Clannad has a version titled 'Two Sisters' on their album Dúlamán.
• go, mordecai! , a band from Buffalo, NY, has a song called 'Sister [Oh, Beautiful One]' based on this balled.
• Aoife Clancy recorded a version titled Two Sisters on her album Soldiers and Dreams.
• Tom Waits includes his own version of Two Sisters on the Bastards disc of his Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards trilogy.
• Folk Metal band In Extremo recorded a German version of the song ("Two Sestra") for the last track of their debut album Weckt Die Toten!.
• Jim Moray included a rendition of this song on his album Sweet England under the title 'Two Sisters'.
• Ewan MacColl recorded a version called 'Minorie' which can be found on several of his recordings.
• Martin Carthy and Dave Swarbrick recorded a version titled The Bows of London.
• The Armstrong Family, Altan, June Tabor, and Gillian Welch with David Rawlings and David Steele have all recorded versions of the song under the title The Wind and Rain.
• Okkervil River released the song under the title The Dreadful Wind and Rain.
• The Perilous Gard references the ballad and includes a few verses.
• Loreena McKennitt has recorded a song with clear parallels to this one, known as The Bonny Swans
• The Canadian Celtic band The Glengarry Bhoys recorded a version of the song on their album 'Juice' entitled "Bonnie Broom"
• Andrew Bird recorded a version of this song titled 'Two Sisters' as the fifth track on the album Music of Hair
• Méav Ní Mhaolchatha recorded the song entitled The Wicked Sister in her album 'Silver Sea' based on the ballad.
• Jerry Garcia and David Grisman recorded Dreadful Wind and Rain on the Shady Grove album.
• Regina Spektor and Levon Vincent recorded a version of the song, known as "Film Score Project" or "Two Sisters", for a college project during their studies at SUNY Purchase.
• Kate Fletcher recorded a version of the song called 'Cruel Sister' it is on her album Fruit

Joseph Jacobs (1854, Australia - 1916) was a British literary historian. ... A fairy tale is a story, either told to children or as if told to children, concerning the adventures of mythical characters such as fairies, goblins, elves, trolls, giants, and others. ... Pentangle is a British folk-rock band. ... Cruel Sister was an album recorded in 1970 by folk-rock band Pentangle. ... Look up clandestine in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Ekova is a french-based trio, headed by American-born Dierdre Dubois,who originated the name, Evoka. ... Old Blind Dogs is a musical group which plays Celtic folk and traditional Scottish folk music, with influences from rock, reggae and Middle Eastern music rhythms. ... Patricia Collins Wrede (pronounced REED-ee) is an American fantasy writer, born 1953 in Chicago, Illinois; she is the eldest of five children. ... In fiction, revisionism is the retelling of a story or type of story with substantial alterations in character or environment, to revise the view shown in the original work. ... Sorten Muld is a Danish techno-folk band, formed in 1995. ... Gjallarhorn in 2004 Gjallarhorn (pronounced yal-lair-horn) features world music with roots in the folk music of Finland. ... This article is about the Irish musical group. ... Thomas Alan Waits (born December 7, 1949) is an American singer-songwriter, composer, and actor. ... Folk metal is a diverse collection of music, encompassing a wide variety of different styles and approaches. ... In Extremo (Latin:at the end or in the extreme) is a German folk metal band originating from Berlin. ... Jim Moray is a singer, multi-instrumentalist and record producer. ... Ewan MacColl (25 January 1915 - 22 October 1989) was a British folk singer, songwriter, socialist, actor, poet, playwright, and record producer. ... Martin Carthy (born May 21, 1941) is an English folk singer and guitarist who has remained one of the most influential figures in British traditional music, inspiring later artists such as Bob Dylan and Richard Thompson since he emerged as a young musician in the early days of the folk... Dave Swarbrick with Martin carthy and Diz Disley (1967). ... Altan are an Irish folk and traditional musical group, who originated in Gweedore, County Donegal. ... June Tabor (born 1947) is an English folk singer. ... Gillian Welch Gillian Welch (born October 2, 1967 in New York City) is a singer-songwriter whose musical style combines elements of bluegrass, neotraditional country, Americana, old time string band music and folk into a rustic style that she dubs American Primitive. All of her recordings feature the close-harmonies... This article is about the musical band. ... Loreena McKennitt live on stage Loreena McKennitt, C.M. (b. ... The Bonny Swans is a track from Canadian musican Loreena McKennitts 1994 album, The Mask and Mirror. ... Andrew Bird (born July 11, 1973) is an American musician, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist. ... Music of Hair is Andrew Birds first released album. ... Méav Ní Mhaolchatha is a singer of traditional Irish music. ... Jerome John Jerry Garcia (August 1, 1942 – August 9, 1995) was an American musician, songwriter, and artist best known for being the lead guitarist and vocalist of the psychedelic rock band the Grateful Dead. ... David Grisman David Grisman (born March 23, 1945 in Hackensack, New Jersey) is a noted bluegrass/newgrass mandolinist and composer of acoustic music. ... Shady Grove is an 18th century folk song popular in the United States. ... Regina Spektor (Russian: ; born February 18, 1980) is a Soviet-born American singer-songwriter and pianist. ... Purchase College, also known as SUNY Purchase or State University of New York College at Purchase, is a public liberal, visual, and performing arts college in Purchase, New York and is a part of the State University of New York system. ...

See also

• Fair, Brown and Trembling

Fair, Brown and Trembling is an Irish fairy tale collected by Joseph Jacobs in his Celtic Fairy Tales. ...

References

External links

• Child Ballads, The Twa Sisters Numerous variants
• The Singing Bone and other tales of Aarne-Thompson type 780 — includes The Twa Sisters and other variants