description
The present contribution discusses comparisons between variants of the Slovenian ballad of Fair Vida (Lepa Vida), which according to Grafenauer classify into three typological groups (Fair Vida with a tragic outcome, Fair Vida with an elegiac end, and Fair Vida with a happy ending), as well as the variants from Resia. The core of this paper consists of a comparison between the typological group of Fair Vida with a tragic outcome, preserved in Brezniks and Kramar's Fairy Vida from Ihan, and some of its Albanian-Calabrian-Sicilian relatives (Zogna Riin, Donna Candia, La bella, Scibilia Nobili) from Marsala and Borghetto)).This comparison touches upon the smaller differences and the greater similarities concerning the abductor, the way the abduction takes place, the fate of the child, the young woman and mother, and her devotion to Christianity. The Slovenian Fair Vida from the Ihan typological group similarly as her foreign relatives shows preference for volunteering to die, rather than allowing her maritime abductors, the infidels/unbelievers, to take her overseas to serve as a slave/ concubine. She presents herself as the guardian of moral honour, of the sacredness of marriage, of family, and of the Christian tradition. The present contribution also reflects upon the relationship between the black Moor in the Slovenian Fair Vida, and the black Arab depicted in the folk songs of the Serbo-Croatian cultural area where the Arab frequently occurs in binary opposition with Prince Marko. In the context of Fair Vida, two poems are presented, in which Prince Marko rescues two maidens out of the hands of the black Arab. The maidens would, as is the case of the Slovenian Fair Vida of the Ihan type, rather choose death than live in servitude with the black Arab.