The creation of the violin
The creation of the violin is a fairy tale of the Transsylvanian Roma. It was first written down by Heinrich von Wlislocki in 1890 and included in his German book "About the travelling Gypsy people. Scenes of the life of the Transylvanian Gypsies".[1]
Content
A poor couple wishes in vain to have a child. The wife complains about her misery to an elderly woman, whom she meets in the forest. The old hag sends her home with the words: "Go home and cut open a pumpkin, pour milk into it and drink it. You will then give birth to a boy who will be happy and rich!" The wife follows her advice and gives birth to a beautiful baby boy. She herself ill and dies shortly after.
When the boy turns twenty years old, he travels the world to find his luck. He comes to a big city, in which a rich king rules. The king has a wonderful daughter, whom he will marry off to a man who can d' something that nobody in the world has seen before.[1]
Many men try their luck but fail, and pay for their failure with their lives. Slightly naive, the youngster just asks the king what he should do, whereupon he is thrown into a dark dungeon. The fairy queen Matuya appears to him in a bright light and gives him a box and a rod. She tells him that he should pluck some hairs from her head and string them over the box and to the rod. Then he should bow the hairs of the rod on the hairs of the box, to play the violin, with which he could make people happy or sad. Matuya laughs and cries into the violin. The youngster displays his new artistic skill to the king, who is out of his mind by the pleasure and gives him his beautiful daughter as wife. "This is how the violin came to the world" is the final sentence of the fairy tale.[1]
Origin, comparison and distribution
This tale has folkloric origins and a magic content. As common in fairy tales, both the old hag and the good fairy possess magical powers. The good fairy Matuya is based on magic tales of the Indian tradition, which is common in tales of the Roma. Matuya appears in the mythology of Transylvanian, Hungarian, Polish, Russian and Serbian Roma as the queen of the ursitory. These fairies are typically beautiful women, who live in mountainside palaces. They enjoy singing and dancing, and thus symbolise music.[2]
It is one of the best known Roma fairy tales, which is part of several collections, even those not focussed on Roma tradition.[3][4][5] It is read occasionally infront of a public audience, is broadcast as a radio play or fairy tale play for children and is used in schools.[6][7][8][9]
Another Roma tale with the same title, which has also been published by Wlislocki, is less known, probably because it is more confusing and lacks the happy ending: A young women gets in touch with the devil, because she admires a rich hunter, who ignores her. One of the givaways of the devil, which should attract the hunter, is a violin, for which she sacrifices her whole family. Her father becomes the body of the violin, her four brothers become the strings and the mother becomes the bow. At the end the young woman is taken away by the devil, because she doesn't adore him. The violin remains in the forest, until it is found and taken away by a travelling Gypsy.[10] In both tales the violinist can get his audience to laugh and cry.[11]
The tales of creation are a typical part of the mythos, and this is one of the few fairy tales that describes the creation of a musical instrument. Others are the Hungarian fairy tale "The violin" and the story of the Mongolian Morin khuur. Both are significantly different from the Transylvanian fairy tale. In the Greek mythology the creation of the pan flute by Pan and Syrinx is a well known story of this kind.[12]
Interpretation
Rosemarie Tüpker interprets the fairy tale in a hermeneutical analysis of the associations of modern readers or audiences. Apart from asking for reflections on the complete story, she also requested to comment on specific topics such as "to be poor and cannot get children over a long time", "a rich king has a beautiful daughter", "to do something that nobody in the world has seen before'.[13]
The fairy tale covers a polarity between two worlds: The original world is characterised by the categories poor and rich, represented by the poor and childless couple and the rich king who just possesses his daughter like one of his belongings and wants to give her away as a prize, without taking care of her feelings. It is all about whether to have things, success and failure, and whether or not to do something. The competition is part of this sphere. Only the old hag and Matuya, the fairies who come from the other world, can help to achieve what is otherwise not possible.[13]
The other world is symbolised by the violin, which is used here as a prototype for all music. This is a world of having feelings and of inducing these feelings in others. The challenge to show something that nobody has seen is solved by demonstrating something that nobody has heard before, i.e. by combining visual and audible perception.[13]
The creation of the violin can also be interpreted as a combination of the male and the female, and thus as a world where there is no desire. Psychoanalytically it is all about generativity and triangulation. From the male and the female something third is reproduced, which is the music that can produce happy or sad feelings. The power of a musiscian, who creates feelings, are quite different to the power of the king, who rules by force. It makes a relationship possible.[13]
It was also noted that neither the son of the poor woman nor the daughter of the king have been created biologically. The father was not mentioned in the context of receiving the baby boy and the mother of the king's daughter is not mentioned at all.[14]
With respect to the violin it was emphasised that the duality is important, to laugh and cry, happiness and sadness, love and death, and that the music represented these feelings and could express these. The violin was seen as a very emotional instrument. However contrary to the fairy tale, it needs years of practice to express personal feelings with it and induce feelings in others.[14]
References
- 1 2 3 Heinrich von Wlislocki: Vom wandernden Zigeunervolke. Bilder aus dem Leben der Siebenbürger Zigeuner. Geschichtliches, Ethnologisches, Sprache und Poesie. Richter, Hamburg 1890, p. 221 f ISBN 5-874-17525-3
- ↑ Hermann Berger: Mythologie der Zigeuner. Originally published in: Hans Wilhelm Haussig (publisher): Götter und Mythen des indischen Subkontinents. Stuttgart, 1984, p. 773-824. Online Version p. 44, downloaded on 1 March 2016.
- ↑ Walter Aichele, Martin Bock (publisher): Zigeunermärchen. Diederichs-Reihe »Märchen der Weltliteratur« Diederichs (First edition 1962) 1991 ISBN 3-424-00331-X.
- ↑ Leander Petzoldt (publisher): Musikmärchen. Fischer Taschenbuch, Frankfurt am Main 1994, p. 124 f ISBN 3-596-12463-8.
- ↑ Paul Zaunert (publisher): Die Zauberflöte. Märchen der europäischen Völker. Eugen Diederichs, Düsseldorf 1995.
- ↑ Das wundersame Kästchen. In 40 Märchen um die Welt. Hörspiel WDR (publisher). Random House Audio 2013 ISBN 978-3-8983-0562-4
- ↑ Zeitschrift Märchenforum Nr. 57 - Vom Lachen und Weinen im Märchen. Mutabor-Verlag, Lützelflüh (CH) 2013
- ↑ Public show of the Theater in der Meerwiese, Münster, downloaded on 1 March 2016.
- ↑ Marianne Seidel: Textarbeit zum Romamärchen Die Erschaffung der Geige, downloaded on 1 March 2016.
- ↑ Francis Hindes Groome: Gypsy Folk Tales, 1899, p. 131 f downloaded on 4 May 2016.
- ↑ Heinrich von Wlislocki: Vom wandernden Zigeunervolke. Bilder aus dem Leben der Siebenbürger Zigeuner. Geschichtliches, Ethnologisches, Sprache und Poesie. Richter, Hamburg 1890, p. 218 f ISBN 5-874-17525-3.
- ↑ Rosemarie Tüpker: Musik im Märchen. Reichert Verlag Wiesbaden 2011, p. 65, p. 69 ff, p. 73 f ISBN 978-3-8950-0839-9.
- 1 2 3 4 Liste der Einzelmotive und Märchentext, downloaded on 1 March 2016.
- 1 2 Rosemarie Tüpker: Musik im Märchen. Reichert Verlag Wiesbaden 2011, p. 51 and 53-57