i The Cultural Significance of Elves in Northern European Balladry Lynda Taylor Submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Leeds School of English September, 2014 ii The candidate confirms that the work submitted is her own and that appropriate credit has been given where reference has been made to the work of others. This copy has been supplied on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement. Assertion of moral rights: The right of Lynda Taylor to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. © 2014 The University of Leeds and Lynda Taylor iii Acknowledgements A central motif of the supernatural ballads is the journey and, as I come towards the end of my own special journey, I am conscious of what a huge debt of gratitude I owe to a small group of people— without whose unfailing support and positivity the expedition would have been only a hard trek, instead of the delightful experience it has proved to be. The idea for the thesis grew out of time spent teaching Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber, and ‘The Erl-King’ in particular, wherein lies my first act of gratitude. I must acknowledge with thanks one who was eventually to act as referee and who enthused about my first instinct to study elves, advising that the focus was better there than on Carter, or even Monk Lewis; so grateful thanks go to Professor P. J. C. Field for that guidance, and to him and my other referee, Dr. Barbara Morden, for their encouragement, guidance and support during those initial weeks of uncertainty about my ability and anxiety about my topic. They at least were able to say ‘job done’ when my application was accepted by the University of Leeds. My supervisor was saddled with me for a further three years, but how fascinating and enjoyable that time has been. To Dr. Alaric Hall, a huge expression of gratitude for his kindness, his infinite patience and advice, which have guided me through my time as a doctoral student. His sensitivity, his commitment, and positive encouragement have been hugely welcome throughout my time at Leeds. I am particularly grateful that he was kind enough to continue the supervision even when on sabbatical in Iceland. I sought Alaric out having been inspired by his book on elves. His further expertise in a large numbers of areas, especially Nordic languages, was an unexpected and welcome bonus, but most memorable will be his indefatigable enthusiasm and his brilliant, and frequently irreverent, sense of humour. It has been a real privilege to work with him. One other tribute requires particular emphasis, and that is to Professor Larry Syndergaard of Western Michigan University for his generous advice and support to this latest member of the ballad fraternity. I shall be forever indebted to him for allowing me to run ideas by him and for gently nudging me towards new ideas and further ballads to study. A debt of gratitude goes also to my examiners, Dr. Emily Lyle of the University of Edinburgh, and Dr. David Higgins, Associate Professor in English Literature at Leeds. I am most grateful for the time they have taken out of their busy schedules to read my work and examine it, and for the opportunity afforded me to discuss with the experts. Their encouragement and good-humoured kindness, their comments and suggestions for improvement have proved invaluable. Thanks go also to Katrine Bay Madsen, Derek Ward and Paul Wyton for help when I have struggled with nuances in Danish and German. Our small community of post- graduate medieval scholars in Leeds deserves mention here, for their camaraderie, encouragement and support: Helen Price, Mary Poellinger, Alejandra Ortiz Salamovich, Katherine Miller, Kirsty Heyam, Vicki Cooper, Sheryl McDonald Werronen and Rose iv Sawyer. My thanks are extended also to members of the English department and to the library for support over the last three years. A project such as this is not possible without the support of family, so here is a huge thank you for their encouragement - which they expressed in two ways. Especially to my longsuffering husband, Rod, for his understanding and patience throughout, for listening, for forbearance when work had to come first and preparation of meals was forgotten, and for his unswerving support. My grateful thanks also to our children Clare, Richard, David and Liz who have shown an interest throughout and never (really) thought it was a nutty idea. And the other type of support, the practical help: to Rod, and Richard for their patience in bailing me out when I had set up yet another new way of devising a table, and for finding the latest black-hole into which I’d deposited a chapter. Martin Kirk, an I.T. genius, along with his wife Pat, came to my rescue in the eleventh hour when difficulties in formatting had become seemingly insuperable, and who cheerfully gave of their time and immense expertise to help me out. Finally, my thanks to all who have in any way listened and encouraged, some with curiosity, others with eyebrows raised in the face of what they could only assume was incipient madness. I hope the completion of this work will assure them that the elves did exist. And may still. v Abstract The focus of this thesis is the supernatural ballads of northern Europe and, in particular, how we can understand a society through its literature. I take as my initial focus the ballads of Denmark (Chapters 2, 4, 5, 6), where supernatural beings of the elf-type are common, before proceeding to the wider northern-European context of Sweden (Chapters 3, 4, 5, 6), Iceland (Chapter 3 and 6), Germany (Chapter 3) and Scotland (Chapters 3 and 7), ranging from the earliest extant text of 1550 through to the nineteenth century to examine synchronic and diachronic changes and what they reveal of the cultures which produced them. This study considers the ballad as pleasing and satisfying literature which does not exist in a cultural or historical vacuum. Close, comparative reading of the texts moves us towards an understanding of how the supernatural was used as a vehicle for considering identity and man’s place in the world. The study analyses the recurring use of the supernatural ballads to establish social and national identities and to express ideologies concerned with gender and patriarchy. The supernatural ballads demand that we look critically at our attitudes, perspectives, and assumptions. As well as examining the main concerns and motifs of the ballad versions, the thesis seeks to problematize our initial assumptions by re-examining the traditional readings and by looking at examples of non-traditional versions. Responses to the ballad stories from both high and low culture serve as a lens through which to analyse the ballads, so Virgil’s consideration of the tale of Orpheus and Eurydice is examined along with Ibsen’s own dramatic version of the Agnete story, and Matthew Arnold’s poem on the same text. This thesis also seeks to examine in what ways women are characterized in terms of their relation to men in a genre largely transmitted by women, in the early ballad and in the nineteenth century, to examine tentatively if there is evidence of women seizing the narrative in order to disrupt the dominant discourse. vi Abbreviations The following abbreviations are used in the thesis: CT Geoffrey Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales Child The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, 5 volumes: English DfU Danmarks folkeviser i udvalg: Danish DgF Danmarks gamle Folkeviser: Danish DSL Dictionary of the Scots Language ÍF Íslenzk fornkvæði (Islandske folkeviser), ed. Jón Helgason: Icelandic KJV The Bible: King James’ Version OED Oxford English Dictionary PMLA Journal of the Modern Languages Association of America SMB Sveriges Medeltida Ballader: Swedish TSB The Types of the Scandinavian Medieval Ballad vii Table of Contents Acknowledgements ………………………………………………………………… iii Abstract..……………………………………………………………………………….v List of Abbreviations…………………………………………………………………vi Table of Contents ……………………………………………………………………vii Chapter 1 Introduction…………………………………………………………………….1 1.1 The northern European ballad……………………………………..… 3 1.2 The development of the ballad genre in northern Europe ..……….. 6 1.2.1 The beginnings ………………………………………………... 6 1.2.2 Denmark ………………………………………………………..8 1.2.3 Norway ………………………………………………………..14 1.2.4 Sweden…………………………………………………………14 1.2.5 Iceland………………………………………………………….15 1.2.6 The Faroe Islands…………………………………………....16 1.2.7 The German language tradition ……………………………..17 1.2.8 Scotland and England ………………………………………..18 1.3 The ‘function’ of the ballads ………………………………………… 20 1.4 Who were the elves? Towards a definition ………………………….21 1.5 Northern Europe …………………………………………………...…26 1.6 Methodology ………………………………………………………… 28 1.6.1 Contribution to knowledge………………………………….. 32 Chapter 2 The Danish ballad ‘Elveskud’ …………………………………….. 34 2.1 The popularity of 'Elveskud' …………………………………………34 2.2 An application of Buchan's 'framework' to the 'Elveskud' versions ..36 viii 2.3 Gender in 'Elveskud' ………………………………………………… 43 2.4 An analysis of 'Elveskud' according to the gender of the informants ……………………………………………………………55 2.5 'Elveskud' version DgF 47B …………………………………………61 2.5.1 The dance motif ………………………………………………..64 2.6 'Elveskud' Version DgF 47A …………………………………………71 2.7 Grundtvig's literary version of 'Elveskud' (DfU) ……………………75 2.8 Further interpretations ……………………………………………….86 Chapter 3 Further afield: the Oluf ballad in Sweden, Iceland, German and Scotland …………………………………………………………93 3.1 'Her Olof och Älvorna’ ……………………………………………..94 3.1.1 SMB 29O ……………………………………………………100 3.2 'Hr Olof och Älvorna' and 'Elveskud' ………………………………103 3.3 'Kvæði af Ólafi liljurós' …………………………………………….. 104 3.4 'Clerk Colvill' ……………………………………………………….. 109 3.5 The German Response: Herder …………………………………….115 3.6 Goethe: 'Erlkönig' …………………………………………………...119 3.6.1 Goethe's re-shaping of Herder's ballad …………………… 125 3.6.2 A cultural analysis of ' Erlkönig' …………………………..127 i.