Wronged Women and Wretched Sinners - the Case of the Maid in Växjö

I have spoken about my love for old murder ballads before. A Swedish compilation of such old folk songs was made between 1896 and 1901 by a man called August Bondeson. If you speak Swedish, you can read the volume online here. 

If you don't... Well, I thought I'd post a few translations here. Nothing fancy; no rhymes or anything, just the basic meaning so you can compare them to their English and American counterparts.

I thought I'd start with a particularly gruesome one called Där tjänte en flicka (There served a girl). It was recorded a few years ago by Swedish artist Louise Hoffsten. Her version is quite good, but it doesn't contain all the verses – only 1-3, 5 and 9-10. It's a pity in my opinion since that leaves out some of the more horrid ones. Anyway, if you have Spotify, you can listen to it here.

I put the Swedish lyrics first and then the English translation right after each verse.And, like I said, it's not a fancy translation, but, I dare say, pretty accurate as far as content goes (but without any poetic flair like rhymes and rhythm).

And – gruesome and purple as this song is, contains at least a pinch of realism. Women being executed for infanticide is historical fact, not fancy. 

1. Där tjänte en flicka i Växjö i två år,

hon tjänte hos en köpman, en ungkarl det var,

det var väl ett stort under, att hon torde

en sådan gärning göra, som hon gjorde.

1.  There served a girl in Växjö for two years,

she was maid to a merchant, a bachelor too,

but it was a mystery how she dared

to do the deed she did

 2. Det hände sig så om en lördagskväll,

hon födde två foster, dem mördade hon själv;

hon trodde, där var ingen, som såg det,

och därför tog hon livet utav dem.

3. It happened on one Saturday night

that she bore two children, she murdered them herself

she thought there was no one who saw it

and so she took their sweet lives.

3. Så svepte hon dem uti renaste lin,

så kastade hon dem i den skarpaste ström;

hon trodde, där var ingen som såg det,

och därför tog hon livet utav dem.

3. She wrapped them in linen

and cast them into a stream

she thought there was no one who saw it

and so she took their sweet lives.

4. Sen gångar hon sig på kyrkogården in,

och tårarne runno så stritt på hennes kind.

 Ja, det var väl ett stort under, att hon torde

en sådan gärning göra, som hon gjorde,

4. Into the graveyard she went

and tears ran down her cheeks.

Yes, it was a mystery how she dared

to do the deed she did

5. "Men ett det är, som grämjer mitt hjärta allra mest,

att min allra yngste broder har mig i bojor fäst;

han fängslar och binder mig så svåra.

Gud nåde mig, syndare arma!

5. "But what grieves my heart the most,

is that my youngest brother has clasped me in irons,

he traps me and binds me so badly.

God have mercy on me, wretched sinner!"

6. Min moder lät stöpa en silverkanna ny,

med fyra förgyllande fötter däruti,

den fyllde hon med blanka riksdalrar,

hon ville själv med konungen samtala

6. My mother had made a silver jar

with four golden feet inside;

filling it with shiny shillings,

with the king she wanted plead

7. för att lösa mitt unga liv, om hon det kunde få.

Men mitt ungaste liv, det passar jag ej på:

när jag för mina synder haver lidit,

så hoppas jag, de äro mig tillgivna.

7. for my young life, if she could

but for my life I have no care;

once I have paid for my sins

I hope they are forgiven

8. I morgon så fyller jag mitt adertonde år,

då hade jag tänkt, att mitt bröllop skulle stå;

men då skall röda hjärteblodet rinna,

likt vatten uti stridaste strömmar."

8. Tomorrow I will turn eighteen,

when I had thought to be a bride

but instead the red blood of my heart 

shall stream in torrents like water." 

9. Den andra dagen ’fördes hon till spetsgården fram. 

Och fram kommer bödeln med yxan i sin hand: 

"Si, här skall detta unga liv iörrinna, 

liksom det vore blodröda strömmar!" 

9. She was brought to the scaffold on the second day

and with an axe the executioner stands:

"See, this young life shall run

in blood red torrents like water!"

10. Så talte hon till folket, som däromkring stod: 

"Ack, hör I, unga flickor, jag råder eder till, 

låten inga falska gossar er behaga, 

ty då fån I sorg i alla edra dagar!" 

10. She spoke to the people who stood all around:

"Oh, hear me, girls, I shall offer you advice,

trust not young men, fair and false, 

lest you shall grieve for all your days!"

*Picture from The Graphics Fairy . It has nothing to do with the song besides looking rather dramatic.

The Daily Victorian, 1897

Forgotten Divas: Teresa Carreño

Teresa Carreño, ca. 1903 (picture from Wikipedia)

Born in  Venezuela in 1853, Teresa Carrneño was an internationally acclaimed singer, pianist, composer and conductor. She debuted very early - only 10 years old, she performed for Abraham Lincoln - and moved to Europe in 1866, where she toured as an opera singer and pianist. She composed, among other things, over 40 works for piano, but her greatest hit was a piece called Tendeur. Mme. Carreño also lived a rather interesting personal life, being married no less than 4 times and having altogether 5 surviving children.

By lucky chance, she recorded some music in 1905 so we can actually here her play today. Among pieces she recorded is the Chopin Ballade No. 1 in G minor Op. 23.

 

In December 1902, she appeared in London and played, among other things, this very same Chopin ballade. The Times was reasonably impressed:

"Mme. Teresa Carreño has long held a place of undisputed supremacy among virtuousi of her sex, and the program of her recital, given on Monday afternoon in Bechstein-hall, is surely a sign that she is no laying stress upon the interpretative side of her art rather than on its merely technical side. With the exception of a formidable "étude de concert" by E. MacDowell, with which it concluded, there was not a note which pianists of ordinary calibre could not execute with certainty, and there must have been at least half-a-dozen people in the audiende whose repertory includes all that Mme. Carreño played. The sonatas were the "appassionata" of Beethoven, and Schumann's in G minor, op. 22, labelles in the programme "Sorasch (sic) wie möglich," as if that were the title of the whole sonata, instead of the direction for the first movement. The Chopin selection included two preludes, in D flat and B flat respectively, the nocturne in C sharp minor, the fine and rarely-hear polonaise in E flat minor, the ballade in G minor, and, for an encore, the éurde in A flat. Tchaikovsky's pretty "Chant sans Paroles" in F, and Rubinstein's barcarolle in G, completed the proamme, and Henselt's "Si oiseau j'étais" was given afterwards as an encore. The player was at her best in Chopin and later composers, but parts of the Schumann sonata were finely interpreted; her style has gained very remarkably in breadth and her splendid tone and the absolute certainty of her execution remain what they were."

Source Citation: 

"Concerts." Times [London, England] 10 Dec. 1902: 4. The Times Digital Archive. Web. 9 Dec. 2012.

Teresa Carreño died in 1917 in New York and today, the second largest theatre in South America, the Teresa Carreño Cultural Complex in Careras in Venezuela, carries her name, as does, oddly enough, a crater on Venus.

Blood, Tears and Betrayal: The Shilling Sheet Genre

The Lion's Bride, referenced below (source: Vintage Printables)

In the 19th century, song sheets could be bought most everywhere in Sweden. Mostly they contained only lyrics and reference to an already well-known or traditional melody and cost one or two Swedish shillings ("skilling" in Swedish, pronounced very close to the English word "shilling"). These little booklets appeared already in the 16th century and were very common through the 18th and 19th centuries, until about 1910 when they were replaced by more modern versions of songbooks.

In principle, they could contain any sort of songs – secular, religious, folk songs or newly written – but the most popular variety were tragic stories of death and broken hearts. Hence, in Swedish, this genre of music has become known as "Shilling Sheets" and most people still know snippets of them  You might say they're part of our pop culture heritage every bit as much as ABBA or Stieg Larsson.

One of the most famous shilling sheet songs is Elvira Madigan, written in 1889 by Johan Lindström Saxon about the tragic elopement of tightrope dancer Elvira Madigan and Lieutenant Count Sixten Sparre that I have written about before on this blog. Another example of a well-known shilling sheet song is Amanda and Herman. It tells the story of  fair Amanda who is let down by the faithless Herman and seeks her death in the waves (women betrayed by faithless men is one of the most popular themes in these songs for some reason). It's been recorded many, many times and I found this lovely version uploaded to YouTube by the talented Elina Järventaus Johansson:

 
Quite often shilling sheet songs are translations of foreign poems or songs - like Lejonbruden (The Lion's Bride) about a lion tamer's daughter who is tragically killed by the lion she loves, which was originally written in German by Adelbert von Chamisso (it can be read in original German and English translation here and you can listen to it in Swedish on YouTube).
 
As adults, we tend to laugh at the unbridled sentimentality of these songs, but most children still find them hauntingly fascinating and heartbreakingly sad. During my childhood, me and my friends would beg my mother to sing them to us over and over, and we cried and cried – for some reason singing them ourselves was not the same thing at all. We didn't want control, we wanted the tragedy to sweep over us with purposeful and unrelenting force.

Why, one might debate. Personally, I think there is something about vicarious suffering that appeals to all people, and while we may think ourselves conditioned to prefer the less melodramatic forms of storytelling that our modern culture celebrates, let us not be fooled. What is the movie Titanic, really, but one long film-version of what would have made an excellent shilling sheet song?

ETA: for those who want to hear more, I made a Spotify playlist with some of the most famous ballads, including Elvira Madigan and the other ones mentioned above:

spoti.fi/YZua2c