ATU 450 "Little Brother and Little Sister"

Hello, and welcome to the November 2021 Folklore & Fiction dispatch. In this edition, I'll be exploring ATU 450 "Little Brother and Little Sister." Let's begin with a Child Ballad for which there is no associated tune, titled "The Laily Worm and the Machrel of the Sea." Please note that there are spelling variations in Francis James Child's original text, and there is a line missing as well, which I have preserved below.

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Greetings! I'm Dr. Ceallaigh S. MacCath-Moran. I hold B.A. in Celtic Studies from the University of Toronto, an M.A. in English and Creative Writing from the University of Maine, and a PhD in Folklore from Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador. I'm also an author, poet, and musician under the name C.S. MacCath. My long-running Folklore & Fiction project integrates these passions with a focus on folklore scholarship aimed at storytellers, and I bring a deep appreciation of animism, ecology, and folkloristics to my own storytelling. You can find me online at csmaccath.com, folkloreandfiction.com, and linktr.ee/csmaccath.