"From Textual to Cultural Meaning: 'Tjanne'/'Barbel' in Contextual Perspective"

This interpretive study of 'Tjanne'/'Barbel', one of the most intriguing and remarkable (revenant) ballads of the Flemish (lacemakers') repertoire, examines its textual records under the lens of multi-level contextual data in exploration of the song's relevance and 'meaning' within its living context. A side look at a representative text of the, as to Grundtvig, Danish Ur-type 'Moderen under Mulde' (DgF 89), highlights the Flemish specific traits against the generic ones. The correlation of this textual data with previous analyses of other (English Midlands and French Vellave) women's (and lacemakers') song expressions and subculture in a patriarchal system, yields surprising insights. The ballad narrative appears to address not so much an extreme case of bereavement and remarriage as to question an ordinary pater familias' moral aptitude to marriage. The Flemish texts drive the point further by resolving the case through a 'serious' and a 'parodic' plot, i.e. religious fervour and derision, to suit distinct performance contexts and audiences, while in either case enhancing a wife and mother's moral and spiritual duties (or 'legacy') to her own or as effective prevention.