ABSTRACT
The addition of music to speech indicates song’s intermediality, involving more than one medium, with the body as the expressive means. Yet the popular tradition that combines fairy tale with song in cante fable and ballad also indicates a wide range of technological involvements. We consider the transformative aspects of song and the fairy tale as oral expression that may be part of large- or small-scale entertainments. We emphasize this multifaceted popular tradition of folksong that instructs, entertains, and provides metamusical commentary on the power of song with fairy tale to share knowledge and effect justice.
