Live-blogging Kalamazoo: The Pseudo Session, the Book Haul, and the Dance

Good Pseudo-Session. The middle paper was a bit weak (basically a linguistics riff relying entirely on scatological and sexual innuendo and homophony) but the first one (on secret societies and the true fate of Richard I) was delightfully innovative and the last -- in which ajodasso and her sweetie reveal the true origins and secrets of the Templars -- totally rocked. As usual, all descriptions are inadequate -- you had to be there.

And since I have a half hour before we meet up to go to the dance, I can fit in the book-haul post before I pack them up to ship home tomorrow morning. ETA: Great fun at the dance. I hung out with my usual girl-gang, dancing about 80% of the time. Even asked a complete stranger to dance and she came back later and danced with us again. I can do a good imitation of a social creature with the right henchwomen.

( Wherein I detail my purchases. )

Live-Blogging Kalamazoo: Sunday 10:30 Session 583 -- The Nordic Ballad

I didn't find anything in the 8:30 session worth getting up that early in the morning for. It's the only session I've skipped this year -- usually I skip out on at least one other to do my book shopping. This may be a commentary on the overall intriguing nature of the sessions. syele, this session is all about that genre I was telling you about. We'll see if it's interesting and useful.

(Sponsor: Kommision für Volksdichtung)

Ballade Images and Church Paintings in Medieval Scandinavia -- Sigurd Kvaerndrup, Växjö Univ.

Based on George Stephens Manuscript Collection, only recently discovered, which includes a large collection of ballads recorded from singers in the 19th century. The combination of ballad as ring dance with singers has roots in the Greek choros, but the oldest ring dance document is from Byzantium ca. 950 with Norse dancers before the emperor at Christmas time, performing "chain dances".

The performance of ballads was looked in as a "mediating medium", that is, a means to some other end. The parallel is drawn with how books were viewed in 12th c. Scandinavia, where most people saw books not as containers of texts but as an intermediating holy object on which you took oaths.

Basic form of the choros = carol = Scandinavian ballad meter is four beats, rhymes, and two burdens, e.g.:

Puer natus est in Bethlemehm
Halleluja, Halleluja
Laetities Jerusalem
Halleluja, Halleluja

But why were so few ballads recorded during the Middle Ages? It may have been viewed as not "elevated" enough to be a literary art (a position taken by Dante). Reference to a publication by the speaker: The East-Nordic Ballad -- Oral Theory and Textual Analyses -- A Study of DgF (2006). The "story" content of ballads are based on sequences of images (sort of like a comic strip). Significant percentage of ballads have female protagonists. Depictions of ballad-like chain/line dances in church paintings used to express joy and celebration, e.g., at a wedding.

The Lost Shoe: A Symbol in Medieval Scandinavian Ballads and Church Paintings -- Tommy Olofsson, Växjö Univ.

The use of a "lost shoe" or "wet foot" is used in a ballad as a euphemism for losing one's virginity. Possible connection with Cinderella motif. (The context of bringing up this ballad appears to be a reference to it being sung as a "ha ha, I know what you've been doing" thing in some modern novel. Which I suppose is a reasonable take-off point, but we seem to be spending entirely too much time talking about the novel.) Images of single-shoe-wearing people in church paintings, e.g., the male figure nicknamed "the clog man" because he's wearing a single clog and holding the other closely to his chest and waving to people in another scene. Suggestion that this represents a man fallen into fornication. Possible connection with stylized drawing located below him in the painting that might be a vagina motif. More ballad stories involving shoes: the farmhand pretending to be a lord gets the maiden's virginity, she boasts that she has his shoes but he points out it's easier for him to get new shoes than for her to get her virginity back. (She has alternate plans, though.) Interestingly, the "lost shoe" motif occurs for both women and men.

Hervör, Hervard, Hervik: The Metamorphosis of a Shieldmaiden -- Sandra Ballif Straubhaar, Univ. of Texas-Austin

(This is the top reason I came to this session. I have a fictional character in a half-finished work who is partially inspired by Hervor in some aspects.)

She intended to take an anthropological approach to the topic, but this didn't work well due to the non-universal distribution of the shield maiden motif. Earliest saga versions are 14-15th century, although poems incorporated into the text are somewhat older. Fictional setting is roughly Viking era, although in-story back-story goes back to pre-Viking setting. The two major versions of this story were both quite popular with large numbers of manuscript versions surviving.

Three Scandinavian ballads contain versions of this story. (Can't see the bibliographic references because the speaker's standing in front of the screen.) Basic story: In a berserker duel, Angantyr and his 11 brothers are slain; Hervor acquires her father's sword from his grave, takes on a male persona, and avenges him with the sword. (The story then trails off into a disjointed genealogical tale talking about her descendents.) Only one of the ballads (the Faroese) contains the full version of both main elements of the story, while the others omit one or include only isolated fragments referring to it.

Question: how did the changes in audience reception over the centuries affect the content of the ballad? In all versions of the ballad, and one of the saga versions, the daughter goes to her father's grave and retrieves his sword, but in many of them this plot-line doesn't go anywhere and end abruptly. What gives? Well, in one of the historic sagas that Hervor appears in, the man she's expected to kill is pre-doomed to a very specific death (not involving her), so it spoils the plot if she kills him instead. In Hervarar saga the cursed father's sword is the thread tying together the fatal adventures of these further generations.

Faroese Ballad "Arngrims sinir" (CCF 16, TSB 389) (trans. based on Nora Kershaw Chadwick 1921) -- includes shield-maiden motif and avenging of father. Story has been moved from berserk vikings to knightly tournaments but the basic story-arc is the same as the earlier saga.

Why do the other ballad versions, for the most part, cut out the genealogical codas and tangled, trailing story lines when compared with the saga versions? More awareness of the sagas as "stories about our own ancestors", thus the genealogical codas are salient. In later centuries, the ballad versions may have lost this connection and been more interested in a tidy and limited story.

ETA: Just as a convenient place to store this link, this Wikipedia article includes references to some of the abbreviations used above. And this thread at Mudcat Cafe also has useful source information.