BALLAD INDEX
Child 10
Roud 8
The story:
In this song, two sisters are on a walk by a river when the older sister pushes the younger sister in the water to kill her. I love the line from the Wikipedia page, “Her motive, when included in the lyrics, is sexual jealousy...”. In most of the versions I know, the older one is jealous that a boy loves her sister instead of her.
The drowned girl floats down the river until she is pulled out of the water by a miller. He uses her bones to make a fiddle,her hair as the fiddle strings, and (my favorite when included), her little finger bones as the fiddle pegs. When he plays the fiddle, the only song that the fiddle will play is the story of the girl’s murder.
The ballad:
Another classic traditional murder ballad, this one with dozens of variations and song names (The Cruel Sister, The Bonny Swans, The Two Sisters…) and dating back to the mid 17th century with origins in England or Scotland, but with very old Scandinavian, Hungarian, Ukrainian, and Norse variants in songs and stories as well.
Here is a great and well researched article on Two Sisters and the many versions from Sing Out.
This is the version of the song that I grew up with so its most classic in my head.
I just got to hear this one performed live and it was so unbelievably captivating. In this version younger sister tries to negotiate with her older sister from the water as she is drowning, calling out “oh sister, sister lend me your hand / and you can have half of my land”. The older sister replies that she wont lend a hand and she’ll take all of the land. The younger sister calls out again and offering her love, William, in exchange for being pulled from the water. The sister on the shore doesn’t reply and the girl drowns and floats down the river, a fiddle to become.
This is the version my mom sung! Now probably the version I have listened to the most while making the crankie. Alex and Bozena perform a beautiful version of this too.