We are finally getting to one of the ballad types and topics that made me realize how much potential lay in these old songs…. Monstrous births. Or, to be clear, that's how they were marketed at the time. They were actually an overall mix of true accounts of birth defects and used the idea of deformity as a direct metaphor. Either which way it went, one thing remained the same. The mother was almost always to blame in some way or another.

Prides's Fall
The two inseparable brothers.

Infant Mortality Rates
The Jersey Devil
Colloredo Twins
 Succession to the Crown Act 
Freaks
NIH: Pregnancy test timeline
The Encyclopedia of Superstitions by Richard Webster
The Odd Superstition Behind Birthmarks
Medieval disability glossary. 

Welcome everyone to Episode 19 Where we are looking at all the ways to woo those wonderful and witty wenches… or the ones who value knowledge over marriage, the one’s that fit the Athena archetype.

Show transcript and blog
A mad kinde of wooing
Hares on the Mountain
The Blue Stocking Society
The Enlightenment

Today we look at both the history and one of the earliest versions of the Robin Hood legend, which spread and gained popularity largely through the ballad traditions. While we do we will look at how he fits in with that classic trickster archetype, and how the social and economic factors of the 1300's led to fertile ground for the growth of his story.
Robin Hode and the Munke / Robin Hood and the Monk
Timeline Documentary
The Medieval Warm Period
The Great Famine
Black Death
  100 Years War
Peasant’s Revolt

Today we do a bit of background in how song and politics intermingle from the key years of the English Civil War and look at the ballad "LONDONS Warning-Peece,
Being, The Common-Prayers Complaint." from 1643.

LONDONS Warning-Peece, BEING, The Common-Prayers Complaint.

5 members of Parliament

Charles I

Charles I on trial

Henrietta Maria

Those who signed the death warrant of Charles I

“Every tub must stand on it’s own bottom

The First Baron’s War

Hung drawn and quartered.

Black letter broadsides an intro.

List of articles and books on the impact of blackletter broadsides on The English Civil War. 

Today we look at the timelessness of fart jokes, and look at a couple of them inside ballads, and parts of Jonathan Swift's “The Benefit of Farting Explained,” which is a satirical essay on why farting should be free. We will also look at two parents who shake all their sons sins out in a sieve.

BawdyBallads.com
“A Looking Glass for Lascivious Young Men”
"A bloody BATTLE between a Taylor and a Louse."
“The Benefit of Farting Explained”
The History of Farting

Welcome back all you wonderfully curious lil’ devils to Bawdy Ballads and today’s episode,  “Taking dem kids, or the Poor Act of 1601" where we will look at one of the most important laws in terms of ballad sellers, often considered vagrants, but we will begin by looking at the letter home of Richard Frethorne, sold into an "apprenticeship" by his local council or parrish when his parents could no longer afford to care for him during a period of economic recession.

Show transcript and Bawdy Ballads Blog.
Poor Law of 1601
Letter home from Richard Frethorne
A light hearts A Jewell.

Today we look at some of the ways that addiction presents itself in popular songs, and briefly look at some surprising facts about Shakespeare.
 
Show Transcript and links

Shakespeare himself was likely a user of both cannabis and cocaine.

Doctor Dogoods directions, To cure many diseases both in body and minde, lately written and

set forth for the good of infected persons.

“snake oil” medicine

Cod Liver Oil The Dubliners

Methhead Ian Noe

Today we look at mentions of abortion in traditional ballads and the various life and death consequences of historical pregnancy and childbirth.

Show notes and transcripts

Tam Lin: History and versions from Mainly Norfolk

“Bonny Jean of Aberdeen”

Historical rates of child and infant mortality

Historical rates of maternal mortality

Atlas Obscura: The Long Tradition of Folk Healing of GrannyWomen

Granny Women of Appalachia by Harriet Masters