Women as the chief preservers of traditional ballad poetry

Rieuwerts, Sigrid (2002) Women as the chief preservers of traditional ballad poetry. Acta Ethnographica Hungarica, 47 (1-2). pp. 149-159. ISSN 1216-9803

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Abstract

F. J. Child argued that it is “mainy through women everywhere” that the ballads are preserved and yet to him, as to Percy, Herder, Motherwell or Grundtvig before, women are only the mediators of an older male form of literature (heroic ballads, minstrel song, etc). The essential maternal feminity of orality is part of the German Romantic myth of origin. The 'Volk'/people had to be (kept) anonymous in order to produce 'VOLKSballaden'/popular ballads. What has come down to us in writing are very often ballads sung by women, recorded by men and presented as the 'manly', powerful, genuine ballads of the people. By arguing for women everywhere being the chief preservers of traditional ballad poetry, F. J. Child paved the way for seeking out these women locally.

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