About: Agnete og Havmanden

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.