Elfland Revisited: A Comparative Study of Late Twentieth Century Adaptations of Two Traditional Ballads

Elfland Revisited: A Comparative Study of Late Twentieth Century Adaptations of Two Traditional Ballads

Giebert, Stefanie

PhD Dissertation, Philosophy, University of Trier, (2009)

Abstract

Once upon a time there was a minstrel. He travelled the land, stopping at the halls of noblemen to entertain their households. He sang old songs he had learned as a child, songs he had picked up during his travels and sometimes songs he had made up himself out of pieces of stories he had heard in villages and halls. He sang of knights and maidens, battles and births, witches and fairies and how another minstrel had once met the queen of fairies herself. Many centuries later a woman is sitting at a desk. Or maybe a kitchen table. Or maybe a café table. The table is strewn with books and sheets of note paper, surrounding an ancient typewriter. Or a laptop. She is working on stories involving knights and maidens, battles and births, witches and fairies… And sometimes she feels a bit like a medieval minstrel, making new stories out of scraps of old ones.

Click here to read this thesis from the University of Trier