The ballad of the Bridge of Arta
The folk song about the masons, the bird and the master builder's wife who was walled into the foundations.
- Genre
- Acritic folk ballad
- Masons
- 45 masons and 60 apprentices
- Motif
- The immured victim
- Parallels
- Balkan songs and the Argeș legend
The Bridge of Arta is the subject of a famous folk ballad, from the family of the acritic songs. In the ballad, 45 masons and 60 apprentices, led by a Head Builder, find the foundations collapsed every morning.
The story of the song
A bird with a human voice tells the Head Builder that the bridge will stand only if he sacrifices his wife, and she is walled into the foundations. Before dying she curses the bridge and those who cross it, then remembers that her brother is abroad and might cross it, and reverses the curses into blessings. The ballad gave rise to proverbs and expressions about interminable delays.
Parallels and historical reality
The motif of the immured victim occurs in other traditions: in the Serbian epic “The Building of Skadar”, in the Romanian folk poem about the Argeș Monastery and in a Merlin legend. The municipality's guide mentions the legend of the Chief Mason who sacrifices his wife, and CNN Greece notes that the story is “likely a myth”.
