The treasure of the Marian songs is full of romantic magic, but this magic also wants to be understood. Hermann Kurzke and Christiane Schäfer illustrate the transformations of the myth of Mary from the Middle Ages to the present day through the creation, versions, and impact stories of twelve major songs. Singing is closer to myth than speaking. The epics of the peoples were presented in a festive song. The myth sings. Instead of joining in devotionally, this book dissects the myth philologically and questions its techniques. When a Marian song emerges as a pilgrimage song in the 17th or early 18th century, is carried through the lands on song leaflets, enters hymnals, is removed from them under the normative pressure of the Enlightenment, disappears, and then is resurrected in the 19th century under the influence of Romanticism, continuing to live on in folk song anthologies.