"The Laily Worm and the Machrel of the Sea" is
Child ballad
The Child Ballads are 305 traditional ballads from England and Scotland, and their American variants, anthologized by Francis James Child during the second half of the 19th century. Their lyrics and Child's studies of them were published as '' ...
number 36.
Synopsis
A young man, transformed into a laily (loathly, or loathsome) worm, tells his story: his father married an evil woman as his
stepmother
A stepmother, stepmum or stepmom is a non-biological female parent married to one's preexisting parent.
A stepmother-in-law is a stepmother of one's spouse. Children from her spouse's previous unions are known as her stepchildren.
Culture
Step ...
, and she
transformed him into a worm and his sister into a mackerel. His sister combed his hair every Saturday. He has killed seven knights, and if the man he was speaking to was not his father, he would be the eighth.
His father sends for the stepmother, who claims his children are at court. He makes her use her
silver wand to turn his son back, and then her magic horn to summon the fish, although the daughter holds back rather than let the stepmother transform her again.
The father burns the stepmother at the stake.
Motifs
This ballad has motifs in common with "
The Laidly Worm of Spindleston Heugh
''The Laidly Worm of Spindleston Heugh'', also known as ''The Laidly Worm of Bamborough'', is a Northumbrian ballad about a princess who is changed into a dragon (the "laidly worm" of the title).
Synopsis
In the Kingdom of Northumbria, a kind k ...
", "
Kemp Owyne", and more with "
Allison Gross
"Allison Gross" (also known as Alison Cross) is a traditional ballad, catalogued as Child Ballad #35. It tells the story of "the ugliest witch in the north country" who tries to persuade a man to become her lover and then punishes him by a transf ...
", but is an independent one, and a traditional one, unretouched by literary forms.
The sister can comb the hair in "Allison Gross" because she still has her human form;
Francis James Child
Francis James Child (February 1, 1825 – September 11, 1896) was an American scholar, educator, and folklorist, best known today for his collection of English and Scottish ballads now known as the Child Ballads. Child was Boylston professor of ...
believed that part of the original tale has been lost, in which she could assume her human form again for part of the week.
The horn has a logical plot function in this tale, unlike "Allison Gross". It is psychologically sound that the fish wishes to avoid her stepmother, but that plot twist leaves her still a fish; Child believed that, here, also, part of the tale was lost.
[Francis James Child, ''The English and Scottish Popular Ballads'', v 1, p 315, Dover Publications, New York 1965]
See also
*
List of the Child Ballads
The Child Ballads is the colloquial name given to a collection of 305 ballads collected in the 19th century by Francis James Child
Francis James Child (February 1, 1825 – September 11, 1896) was an American scholar, educator, and folklorist, ...
*
Laidly Worm of Spindleston Heugh
References
External links
The Laily Worm and the Machrel of the Sea
Child Ballads
Fiction about shapeshifting
Uxoricide in fiction
Year of song unknown
{{Folk-song-stub