Controlling Women: Reading Gender in the Ballads Scottish Women Sang

Western Folklore, Fall 2002 by Wollstadt, Lynn

The women in "Mill o' Tifty's Annie" and "The Dowie Dens of Yarrow" demand the audience's sympathy in a way that many of the women in other Scottish popular ballads do not. After all, the "crime" for which they are rejected by the men in their lives is simply being in love with a man of the wrong class, and both of these ballads make a point of giving these socially powerless men clear virtues over the other men in the narratives. Being in love seems to be an appropriate and acceptable state for a young woman; the twentieth century, at least, generally expects it at a certain point in a woman's life. The idea of romantic love, after all, has long been relied upon to support the patriarchal family structure at the heart of western European culture, even during times when most marriages among the well-to-do were arranged. Failing to return a worthy man's love was a far worse crime for a young girl in the ballad world, for such capricious female independence threatens cultural stability, a phenomenon that we see in "Barbara Allan." Though issues of control are again central to this well-known ballad, "Barbara Allan" reverses traditional "masculine" and "feminine" roles. Versions of this narrative vary widely, but all involve a young man dying for the love of a young woman. Though she comes to his deathbed when called, Barbara Allan refuses him the love that will, in this ballad world, cure him. The man is the desirer and the woman is the desired, and she has the option to choose whether to fulfill this desire: the "love" that she withholds has the supposed ability to restore her lover's health. Although reactions to this ballad do, of course, vary-Bertrand Bronson, for example, noted that the ballad had demonstrated a "stronger will-to-live" than its "spineless lover had" (quoted in Lyle 1994:284)-the narrative makes clear which character is in the wrong.11 This ballad does not celebrate Barbara Allan's power over her lover, but warns of its dangers. The audience's sympathies should be with the helpless, dying man; Barbara Allan is the villain, a selfish, shallow, grudge-bearing girl. That she realizes her fault and dies for her man redeems her only partially. The ballad's focus is on the young man's death; Barbara Allan dies offstage: "Since my love died for me to-day, / I'll die for him to-morrow."

What might twentieth-century women singers have found appealing in this ballad? The message in "Barbara Allan" is not subtle, but as Barre Toelken has pointed out, the ballad still can be understood in many different ways. "Was 'Barbara Allen' understood to be a case of ironic tragedy or selfish stupidity?" he asks in "Context and Meaning in the Anglo-American Ballad." "Or a cruelly jealous woman getting her just desserts? Or an unbelievably naive man betrayed?" (Toelken 1986:32). Certainly, individual women may have seen any of these possibilities. One interesting fact about the variations of this ballad, though, is the extent to which they emphasize (or fail to emphasize) the reasons behind Barbara Allan's refusal to love this man. The version of this ballad that Child designated his "A" text contains one stanza in which Barbara Allan reminds the young man of an occasion where he slighted her: