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.  Support the show