The motif of the illegitimate mother who murders or casts out her child and is punished for it is known in folk song tradition almost throughout Europe, including Slovenia. In Slovenian folk tradition, the motif is used in four ballad form. In the first, an illegitimate mother deliberately commits a crime so that she can get married as a virgin bride. When her cast-out babe turns up on her wedding day and accuses her of the crime, she does not atone but calls on supernatural forces in order to prove her innocence. That is her undoing.
The Ballad of the Child Murderess: Comparison of Slovenian and Gottscheer Ballads
Before World War II, versions of the ballad involving a child murderess were also widespread in the Kočevsko Region. The first Gottscheer variant is very similar to the Slovenian one: instead of a shepherd, an old man appears, but otherwise it involves a similar development of the motif. In the Slovenian versions, the mother murdered two children, threw them into the water, and put one in a hollow beech tree or under a block of beech wood. In the Gottscheer version, the little child is taken to the house where the wedding is taking place by an old man, but in the Slovene version they are mostly taken by the uncle (mother’s brother). In all the variants, both Slovenian and Gottscheer, the mother bride denies giving birth, and in all of them she wears a green wreath expressing her innocence. In the Slovene versions, the wreath alters its appearance or starts to burn, while in the Gottscheer version (and in the first written Slovene version), the child murderess is carried away by the devil.
However, the second Gottscheer version is quite different. There is a dialogue between the mother and a girl, Mina, who laments to her mother that she is not feeling well, whereupon her mother advises her what to do three times. When the advice is to no avail, Mina admits that she is pregnant. She has previously given birth to nine children, two of them she concealed in a tree and she drowned the others. The girl ventures off into the forest, where she dies during labour, and her son remains in her arms. The song ends with the son studying to become a priest and save his mother, father and friends from perdition through masses, but not his grandmother, who never helped his mother.
We present the Gottscheer variant in the fragment below. There are 188 Slovenian versions of this type of song (published in Slovenian Folk Songs, Slovenska matica and Založba ZRC, 2007; SFS V/type 286):
Ballad of the Child Murderess, Hauffen 1895, No. 79: English translation (via Slovenian translation):
| 1 | How early does the old man rise! |
| He gets up in the morning, | |
| he ventures out on the wide path, | |
| on the wide path, through a dark forest. | |
| 5 | A voice is heard from a hollow beech tree: |
| “Ye, old man, ye, my darling, | |
| So carry me to the house where the wedding is. | |
| The bride, she should be my mother!” | |
| “How can a bride your mother be, | |
| 10 | she is wearing a green wreath?” |
| “Right under the green wreath | |
| Is where she gave birth to three boys. | |
| Two she threw into the water, | |
| it was only me she concealed in the tree, | |
| 15 | she placed leaves and earth to cover me.” |
| He took him to the house where the wedding was taking place: | |
| “This bride my mother should be!” | |
| “If I your mother be, | |
| then let Satan come to the window, | |
| 20 | let him carry me off to the dark forest!” |
| She had not yet spoken the word, | |
| when Satan quickly to the window comes, | |
| and spirits her off into the dark forest. |
The Ballad of a Condemned Child Murderess Based on a True Story
Let us say a few words about a special type of ballad involving a child murderess. The ballad of a condemned child murderess belongs among the so-called family ballads. So far, 80 variants are known throughout Slovenia. This is one of the rare type of ballad that originated in an urban setting and then spread to the countryside, as can be inferred from the geographical spread of the variants recorded.
The story of the unfortunate illegitimate mother who murders her new-born child and is condemned to death was based on a real-life event. Information about it can be found in the account ledgers of the Municipal Court of Ljubljana, where payments to executioners for their activities are recorded. Thus, under the expenses in 1766, it is stated that on 23 October 1766, Martin Jakob, the executioner from Št. Vid in Carinthia, received 40 goldinars because on the previous day, he had executed with a sword Urša Mandlovka (Maldnlovka, Mandeljc?), household name Kustrovka, aged 17. She had a reputation for being the most beautiful girl under the bell of St. Peter’s Parish Church in Ljubljana and had been convicted of infanticide.
The Punishment of Urša Mandlovka
Urša was thrown into jail, i.e. the dungeon (tranča), after which one of the oldest parts of Ljubljana is named today – Ulica pod Trančo Street, as mentioned in some versions of the ballad. Ursa’s boyfriend and the child’s father is said to have been a farmhand called Jurij. She murdered the child because she feared the harsh penalties and public shame that came with illegitimate motherhood. A girl with an illegitimate child had to stand barefoot as a sinner before the gates of the (St.Peter’s) Parish Church, holding her baby in her arms and a burning candle in her right hand. Her braids were cut off and two straw plaits were pinned in their place. People who came to the church would revile her and spit on her, and whoever wanted to was allowed to strike her with a rod that lay at her feet. The crown of straw symbolised the loss of virginity, the rod a sign of punishment and the burning candle a sign of penance.
Such exposures were partly abandoned under Empress Maria Theresa’s 1769 Penal and Procedural Code (Constitutio Criminalis Theresiana), which mostly stipulated fines, escalating fines and corporal punishments instead of shameful exposure. In 1868, the civil authorities moved public executions behind the walls of the gaols, but after 1873, when the new Penal Code was published, they were no longer allowed at all.
The circumstances that led to the infanticide were not taken into account by the male judges, because the woman was not considered a person, instead being the property of men. Indeed, the ballad does not touch on these issues either and all the blame was attributed to the illegitimate sexual activity of the girls, which was strongly condemned by the ecclesiastical lords. None of the ballad variants depict the social problems, i.e. poverty and the difficult social situation of the child murderesses. Urška Mandlovka was sentenced to death as a poor girl, but the executioner fell in love with her and begged the judges to allow him to take her as his wife to save her from perdition. Urška refused this because of the very strong popular belief at the time that the executioner (hangman, headsman) was associated with the devil.
She was executed at the Ljubljana scaffold at Friškovec, where a stone cross stood in the middle of the fields. The song also mentions the “place” of execution, namely “in the middle of a field in Ljubljana”. The procession passed through the suburbs of Šentjanž along present-day Vidovdanska cesta Road towards Šmartno ob Savi.
The “Condemned Child Murderess” Ballad Path
In addition to the aforementioned, we know “The Condemned Child Murderess” ballad path, which was created so we could follow the fate of the child murderess through the stations on the streets of present-day Ljubljana as recorded in the song, which would transport us back to the 18th century when this real event took place.
The article The Folk Ballad of the Infanticide: Slovenian and Gottscheer Versions was created as part of the project The Weight of the past. Heritage of the Multicultural Area: Case Study of Gottschee , which was financially supported by the Slovenian Research Agency.
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