''Vår Ulla låg i sängen och sov'' (Our Ulla lay in bed and slept) is Epistle No. 36 in the Swedish poet and performer Carl Michael Bellman's 1790 song collection, '' Fredman's Epistles''. The epistle is subtitled "Rörande Ulla Winblad's flykt" (Concerning

Ulla Winblad Ulla Winblad was a semi-fictional character in many of Carl Michael Bellman's musical works. She is at once an idealised rococo goddess and a tavern prostitute, and a key figure in Bellman's songs of ''Fredman's Epistles''. The character was part ...

's flight). It begins with the innkeeper peeping through the keyhole to her bedroom and whispering with his friends as she sleeps, slowly waking up. Then she dresses ornately and enters the tavern, delighting the menfolk until she is suddenly arrested. The epistle has been praised as a perfect example of Bellman's rococo style, narrated with a mix of earthy and poetic detail.

Background

Epistle

Music and verse form

The song has nine stanzas, each of eighteen lines. It is in time, marked '' Allegretto''. The rhyming pattern is ABAB-CDCD-EFEF-GGH-IIH. The source of the melody is a contredanse called ''Prins Fredric''.

Lyrics

The song was written sometime between 1773 and 1776. The epistle begins with the innkeeper whispering with his friends and peeping through the keyhole to Ulla bedroom as she lies asleep, gradually waking up. She stirs uneasily, wakes, and adorns herself in a manner "worthy of a

Marie Antoinette Marie Antoinette Josèphe Jeanne (; ; née Maria Antonia Josepha Johanna; 2 November 1755 – 16 October 1793) was the last queen of France before the French Revolution. She was born an archduchess of Austria, and was the penultimate child a ...

": she "sprinkles her bosom 'with wine and rosewater', twines a pearl bracelet round her wrist and adorns her locks with a bo-peep hat". She enters the tavern, delighting the menfolk with her charms, and drinks a brandy with a lump of sugar. Then, disaster strikes: four ragged bailiffs arrive, arrest her, ignoring her shrieks, and lead her away.

Reception and legacy

The epistle is in the opinion of Bellman's biographer, Paul Britten Austin, "a perfect—perhaps ''the'' perfect—example of Bellman at his most rococo". He writes that it is narrated with "a delightful blend of earthy and poetic detail, shimmering with humour". In his view, it is a "splendid poem, wherein Bellman shows immeasurable artistry, balance, and subtlety of effect". He states that it cannot, as earlier proposed, have been a response to William Hogarth's '' A Rake's Progress'', and has none of Hogarth's moralization, but could perhaps be echoing Alexander Pope's ''

The Rape of the Lock ''The Rape of the Lock'' is a mock-heroic narrative poem written by Alexander Pope. One of the most commonly cited examples of high burlesque, it was first published anonymously in Lintot's ''Miscellaneous Poems and Translations'' (May 1712) ...

''. Carina Burman writes in her biography of Bellman that people have from time to time wanted to change a word in the Epistle. The Bellman interpreter

Cornelis Vreeswijk Cornelis Vreeswijk (; ; 8 August 1937 – 12 November 1987) was a Dutch-born Swedish singer-songwriter, poet and actor. He emigrated to Sweden with his parents in 1949 at the age of twelve. He was educated as a social worker and hoped to become ...

for some reason sings it with the word ("water-glass") in place of Ulla's , a brandy-glass. The poet Per Daniel Amadeus Atterbom took issue with the word , lit. "thunder", meaning a fart that Ulla releases as she climbs into bed, pulling the quilt over her head. Burman comments that it is interesting that Atterbom took exception to a bodily function rather than sex. The Epistle has been recorded by

Mikael Samuelson Mikael Gustaf Lennart Samuelson (born 9 March 1951) is a Swedish baritone opera singer, actor, and composer. Samuelson, born in Njutånger in Hälsingland, central Sweden, is the son of the musician and music arranger . Mikael Samuelson has ...

and by Cornelis Vreeswijk.

Notes

References

Sources

* * * * * (contains the most popular Epistles and Songs, in Swedish, with sheet music) * (with facsimiles of sheet music from first editions in 1790, 1791) *

External links

Text of Epistle 36
on Bellman.net {{DEFAULTSORT:Vår Ulla låg i sängen och sov Fredmans epistlar 18th-century songs