Has anyone mentioned Bessy Bell and Mary Gray (child#201)?

It is an oddity among Child ballads, as Polly Stewart noted, in that in Child ballads, where there is a woman there is always a man. Well, these two women built a house together, and of course, died of the plague (how dirty).   

The obscurity of this song, its fragmented inclusion in the Child collection, and the lack of any others like it may simply indicate that homosexuality (or even lacking men in the lives of females) was too dirty a notion to even sing about. Heres to hegemony! Bloody murder, incest and even rape are fine though.

Mary