Most(?)folk songs are about one form of misery or another mainly involving death, lost love, shipwrecks and/or other natural disasters.
I suppose it's fair to say that this was the way news & various historic events were recorded in the past.

I find "The Dutchman" is a particularly sad song as it relates directly to dementia which seems to becoming more prevalent these days. Probably because people are growing older in numbers and not dying from previous killer diseases.

BTW, excellent song picks above by GerryM.