Are there any historical ballads that use the same structure as "For the Dancing and the Dreaming"?

by ParanoidKiwi

Spoilers for the new How To Train Your Dragon film ahead.

In one scene, two characters sing a love ballad together called "For the Dancing and the Dreaming". The lyrical style - male singer professing his love and offering various actions as proof of it, while the female singer rebuts his gifts and boasts - reminded me heavily of medieval love ballads. For the life of me, though, I can't find any examples.

Is there a name for this style/structure? Are there any examples that I've missed?

university_press

This isn't so much a direct response, but I hope you find this obscure, and eccentric, example interesting.

There was a convention in fourteenth-century Welsh poetry where a man would address his lover through the actions of an animal. This animal was to convey his admiration to the lady, and was called a llatai in Welsh. Dafydd ap Gwilym is the king of this poetry:

[There is] a girl ripe for far-flung praise:

fly around the rampart and the castle

and look if you may see her, Seagull,

a girl of Eigr's form, on the fair fortress.

Tell her my message of desire:

Let her choose me: go to the girl,

if she's alone, be bold enough to greet her,

be skilful with the gently-nurtured girl

to win advantage; say that I cannot stay alive -

a kind and cultured youth - unless I win her.

Quite the charmer. A variation on this theme is when Dafydd addresses his penis to convey the love:

By God penis, you must be guarded

with eye and hand

because of this lawsuit, straight-headed pole,

more carefully than ever now.

Cunt's net-quill, because of complaint

a bridle must be put on your snout

to keep you in check so that you are not indicted

again, take heed [you] despair of minstrels.

To me you are the vilest of rolling pins,

scrotum's horn, do not rise up or wave about,

gift to the noble ladies of Christendom,

nut-pole of the lap's cavity,

snare shape, gander

sleeping in its yearling plumage,

neck with a wet head and milk-giving shaft,

tip of a growing shoot, stop your awkward jerking,

crooked blunt one, accursed pole,

centre pillar of a girl's two halves,

head of a stiff conger-eel with a hole in it,

blunt barrier like a fresh hazel-pole.

Surprisingly, there is a response to this from a woman, one of the few female voice in medieval Welsh poetry. I won't print it here, as it's even ruder than the previous poem, suffice to say that one editor has titled it the wonderful "Vivat Vagina".

More generally, a female voice is rather unusual in medieval literature, but certainly not unknown. For more Welsh poetry go here, and for something more romantic, check out the troubadours from Provence.