#murder ballad

Then there was some trivial misadventuring with the USPS, so I had to ask my friend to go fetch it from the post office for me. “It’s very pleasing to the eye!” she texted me, and I ran uptown to behold the wonder.

Now, the box was slightly bigger than I had anticipated, but I was initially just thinking I didn’t think Child Ballad was that long but I too would be worried about sending intricately-made art over the ocean so extra packing makes sense and joining my friend in admiring the box.

Please note the pattern of the paper. (I actually recognized it from a tumblr post of pyrrhlc’s.)

My friend and I carefully unwrapped it, at which point, she said, “you should make an unboxing video!” and I was not about to wait long enough to do anything that fancy but I did take pictures and look:

WHAT

WHAT

Friends. Comrades. Seen here now at home on my desk:

FOUR BOOKS.

Four extremely beautiful books! Plus an enclosed note with a handsome crow (the books are from the Black Crow Bindery!) which contains kind words about my fics and also edifying facts about the patterns on the covers! The Service Work ones are based on wallpaper from the 1880s! They all have pretty ribbons and handsome Baskerville typeface!

The two Service Work books also have these pretty metal corner guards which probably have a technical name I am unaware of! Tumblr won’t let me add more pictures! You can kind of see them in the others, though!

Oh they wouldn’t touch it with a ten foot pole! But thank you for giving me an excuse to talk about one of my favourite tragic fairy tale motifs: Reincarnation as musical instrument (E632).

There are multiple ways a murder may be revealed by supernaturally speaking or singing bones, plants or objects, but the instrument that sings of the heinous murder is my favourite. It’s so deeply, darkly capital R Romantic. Most of all in the English and Scottish ballad The Twa Sisters and it’s prose counterpart Binnorie:

Two sisters (often princesses) are wooed by a knight, and while he betrothes with the eldest, he loves the youngest better. So the elder sister drowns her sister out of jealousy. A (blind) musician comes across the drowned sister’s remains and either makes an instrument from her bones or strings his violin or harp with her golden hair. As soon as the fiddle is played, usually at the king or the knight’s court, it mournfully sings how she was cruelly drowned by the bride. Most versions end there. In some the instrument breaks in two after singing its song. In some the sister is punished.

The Grimm’s The Singing Bone is less Romantic, but equally tragic:

Two brothers set out to kill a dangerous boar to earn a reward from the king. The youngest succeeds, so the eldest kills him and claims the princess’ hand in marriage instead of him. A shepherd finds a little snow white bone on the spot where the young man was killed and carves it into a mouthpiece for his horn. When he blows on it, it sings of the murder of the brave young man. The shepherd takes the wonderful horn to the king’s court, where the murder is revealed and the elder brother put to death.

In some versions the story is about which royal child will inherit the crown. Like in the Spanish tale The Blue Lily (where the murdered prince miraculously survives being buried alive and having his finger bone turned into a flute that sings of his fate), the Sicilian tale The Singing Bagpipe, or in the Swiss tale The Dead Girl’s Bone:

A king dies and leaves behind the queen and two children. One day they ask their mother who will get the throne. The queen tells the children that whoever finds a certain flower in the woods will be the one to rule. The princess finds the flower, but the prince murders her and takes it from her. Years later a shepherd boy finds one of the girl’s bones and makes it into a flute. When he plays it, it sings mournfully of the horrible murder. A knight hears the boy play the flute and buys it. He plays it wherever he goes. At last the old queen hears its song, removes her son from the throne, and mourns the rest of her life.