I'm 40. I think Joan Baez was my first introduction to professionally sung folk (blush), but I grew up on the written stuff. Two of my childhood browsing books were re Scottish Border Ballads and English & Scottish Ballads.

So, long before I heard them sung, I was reading about loathely brides, forlorn maidens, Jock o'the Side, Robin Hood, roses and briars twining over graves, go saddle me the fastest horse, and when he came to the green grass growing, and binding the mermaid's sark around an aching head that ached e'er the more.

I later had the delight of taking a ballads class and hunting down the English, Scottish, American, and Norwegian(?) versions of Fair Annie--the unwed mother of seven sons, cast aside for a new bride, who turns out to be her sister. When you look at all the versions, they really do come across as an ethnic joke: the English version is concerned about the woman's family line, the Scottish about the money for her dowry, and the American about punishing the man for his crime in kidnapping, raping, and then abandoning the woman. I've forgotten the details of the Norwegian (or was it Danish) version, but it might have been concerned with sin and confession. I'd have to check.