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...

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...

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...