The Ballad Repertoire of Anna Gordon, Mrs Brown of Falkland が出版されました
フランシス・ジェームズ・チャイルドが長らく探し求めていたブラウン夫人の稿本が以下としてようやく出版されて、その全貌が明らかになりました。すでに出版された David Buchan and James Moreira, eds., The Glenbuchat Ballads (Univ Pr of Mississippi, 2007) および Murray Shoolbraid, ed., The High-Kilted Muse: Peter Buchan and His Secret Songs of Silence (Univ Pr of Mississippi, 2010) などとともに、バラッド研究に重要な資料が加わりました。ブラウン夫人の稿本は Bishop Percy’s Folio Manuscript に匹敵するくらいの価値があると思います。チャイルドは当初から "No Scottish ballads are superior in kind to those recited in the last century by Mrs Brown, of Falkland." (The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, part I, 1882, p. v) と言っていたくらいですので、この稿本を見ることができなくてさぞかし心残りであったでしょう（そのあたりの経緯については、Mary Ellen Brown, Child's Unfinished Masterpiece: The English and Scottish Popular Ballads (2011) をご覧ください）。
Sigrid Rieuwerts, ed., The Ballad Repertoire of Anna Gordon, Mrs Brown of Falkland (Scottish Text Society, 2011)
内容説明
It is generally acknowledged that no Scottish ballads are superior in kind to those recited by Mrs Brown of Falkland (1747-1810). Her ballads date from an earlier age and contain the themes and motifs of medieval romance and folk tale, a world full of kings and queens, knights and ladies, love and betrayal and encounters with the otherworld. They are entirely from an oral tradition, passed down a female line of transmission from her mother, grandmother and aunts; they thus provide a unique glimpse into the collective memory of Scotland in the age of enlightenment. This edition presents Mrs Brown's collection entirely in the order in which she preserved it, prior to the intervention of (male) ballad collectors such as Walter Scott, Robert Jamieson and 'Monk' Lewis. It provides the texts of all Mrs Brown's manuscripts; where a ballad is recorded in more than one version, it presents the different recensions in facing page format, enabling an easy comparison. Music from the original manuscripts is also given in modern notation. A full introduction and notes complete the volume. Professor Sigrid Rieuwerts teaches at Siegen University.