Germand Gladensvend and the monster

Abstract

Abstract The present analysis discusses the narratological structures of the Danish folk ballad on ‘Germand Gladensvend’ (‘Happy Germand’, DgF 33). The text is preserved in six different manuscript versions, all of them written before appr. 1630, and in a printed version from 1591. Although the story is strongly related in all of them, including stanzas that are identical almost word for word, the different versions nevertheless have rather different narratological structures, depending on the strong variation between the conclusions of the different versions. In order to make these differences clear, the analysis uses classical narratological concepts, like movements of objects of value and the semiotic square. The narrative structures in the extant versions of the Danish popular ballad “Germand Gladensvend” (DgF 33).