Agnete og Havmanden (Danish) or Agneta och havsmannen (Swedish) ('Agnete and the merman') is a ballad (The Types of the Scandinavian Medieval Ballad A 47, Merman's wife returns to earth; Danmarks gamle Folkeviser 38; Sveriges Medeltida Ballader 19). It is also found in Norway and as a prose folktale published by Just Mathias Thiele in his 1818 Danske Folkesagn, though Thomas Bredsdorff has argued that this prose version is of literary rather than folkloric origin. The ballad too is generally thought to be relatively late in its composition, perhaps from the eighteenth century. Synopsis In the ballad, a merman woos Agnete to leave her children behind and come and live with him in the sea. She does so and has several children by him. But one day she hears the ringing of church bells and with the merman's permission returns to land to visit the church. In some versions, the images of saints in the church turn away from Agnete when she enters. She meets her mother, telling her about her new aquatic life. In most variants, she then abandons the merman and the children she bore by him, choosing to remain with her former family. In some versions from all regions, however, she returns to the sea. Analysis The work has been characterized as a ballad laden with Christian values by literature professor and others. However, there are also commentators that perceive sympathy towards the forsaken merman, such as C. Hostrup or Iørn Piø. The ballad's ending, where the woman states she will not miss her children one whit, stands out as being anomalous behavior for heroines (ones abducted by supernatural beings) in Danish balladry. On this point, Thiele's prose version offers an elaboration, that these were "ugly little children" produced between the merman and her. Another hypothesis advanced is that the woman's behavior is topsy-turvy by design of the author; both the cold-heartedness of the woman and the powerless merman were a deliberate flip of what occurs in traditional Danish ballads (which feature a maiden seduced by a supernatural being), thus creating a "travesty", i.e., comic satire. Origins Although it may share its origins with other Danish ballads (transmission from 13th century French folk songs), this ballad was set down in writing quite late, and is lacking from the collections of Anders Sørensen Vedel (1591) or Peder Syv (1695). The written work may date to the late 18th