SteveG:

Another feature of the song in question is the 'false-parts' theme in which the female takes off a whole catalogue of falsies. This dates back to at least the 17th century.

I am currently working on a blogging project (Plato's Nightmare / Aesop's Dream) focused on exploring the various images of disability as it appears in folklore and literature up until the start of World War 1 (which is where I set my own, arbitrary, beginning of "The modern world"). If this theme goes back 300 years, it certainly qualifies, and I would love to pick your brains on the theme and motifs around it. Do you have access to Mudcat PM (are you just sans cookie, at the moment)? Or is there some other way I can chat with you?