Bibiel Hears Things: Hirundo Maris – “I Will Give My Love an Apple”

Hey people! Today I’d like to feature a traditional English ballad. Like a lot of traditional songs, it exists in quite a lot of versions that differ only slightly from each other and are known under varying titles – “I Will Give My Love An Apple”, “I Gave My Love A Cherry”, but also “The Riddle Song” or “Peri Meri Dixi” (and all sorts of spelling variations thereof). “The Riddle Song” title, as you can expect, is because the song is part of the riddling tradition – solving riddles within a community, not just for fun, but to test one’s intelligence and creativity, and to navigate various social situations skilfully, not least of them courtship and marriage. Here, the riddle lies in all the gifts that the singer wishes to give his beloved, which then turn out to represent himself – the “apple without e’er a core” is his head, the “house without e’er a door” is his mind, and the “palace wherein she may be, And she may unlock it without e’er a key” is his heart. The song was first…