Anti-Heroines in Traditional Song?

Subject: RE: Anti-Heroines in Traditional Song?
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 09 Feb 10 - 05:43 PM

King Willy - Cloudstreet

Certainly this is traditional, as Crow Sister points out it is Child 6 Willie's Lady most famously recorded by Martin Carthy. However, the Breton tune he uses was brilliantly put to the ballad by Ray Fisher.

Surely the most notorious anti-heroine is the mother (or sometimes mother-in-law) in Famous Flower Of Serving Men as Tim points out.

Subject: RE: Anti-Heroines in Traditional Song?
From: GUEST
Date: 09 Feb 10 - 05:54 PM

The Crafty Maid's Policy is an absolute favourite of mine and I sing it at any session I can get to. The twist in the tale is superb!

CRAFTY MAID'S POLICY

Come listen a while and I'll sing you a song
Of three merry gentlemen riding along
They met a fair maid and to her did say
"I fear this cold morning will do you some harm"

"Oh no, kind sir," said the maid, "You're mistaken
To think this cold morning will do me some harm
There's one thing I crave, it lies twixt your legs
If you give me that, it will keep me warm"

"Since you crave it, my dear, you shall have it
If you'll come with me to yonder green tree
Then since you do crave it, my dear you shall have it
I'll make these two gentlemen witness to be"

So the gentleman lighted and straightway she mounted
And looking the gentleman hard in the face
Saying, "You knew not my meaning, you wrong understood me"
And away she went galloping down the long lane

"Oh gentlemen, lend me one of your horses
That I might ride after her down the long lane
If I overtake her, I'll warrant I'll make her
Return unto me my horse back again"

But soon as this fair maiden she saw him coming
She instantly then took her pistol in hand
Saying, "Doubt not my skill, it's you I would kill
I'd have you stand back or you are a dead man"

"Oh why do you spend your time here in talking
Why do you spend your time here in vain
Come give her a guinea, it's what she deserves
I'll warrant she'll give you your horse back again"

"Oh no, kind sir, you're vastly mistaken
If it is his loss, well it is my gain
And you are a witness that he give it to me"
And away she went galloping over the plain

And comes complete with midi file in the Digital Tradition.
here

Subject: RE: Anti-Heroines in Traditional Song?
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 10 Feb 10 - 01:54 PM

MadAuntiesCat, yeah fabulous imagery in Tom/Maudlin - thanks for the extra illumination regards Maudlin's likely 'profession' too, she's by far and away one of the most engaging female figures I can think of in the traditional songs I know.

Otherwise, I think this is a great rendition of Greenwood Side by Ian and Sylvia.

Subject: RE: Anti-Heroines in Traditional Song?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 10 Feb 10 - 02:24 PM

Re Maudlin's profession ~ ref also to song sung by Frankie Armstrong:~

As I came in by Tansy's Wood and down by Geordie's Mill O,
Four and twenty of Geordie's men kissed me against my will O.

~ poignant tale of imprisoned prostitute who attributes her fall to having been gang-raped. It is called 'The Magdalene's Lament'.

Subject: RE: Anti-Heroines in Traditional Song?
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 10 Feb 10 - 02:27 PM

Of course we have Frankie, of Frankie and Albert or Frankie and Johnnie, who killed her pimp, who done her wrong.

Yes, we may find her justified in a manner, but murder is a pretty strong reaction for the provocation.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Anti-Heroines in Traditional Song?
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 10 Feb 10 - 02:29 PM

And there's Aunt Clara, whom "we never mention".

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Anti-Heroines in Traditional Song?
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 10 Feb 10 - 02:38 PM

And then Hannah, the wife in The German Musicianer

and

The unnamed wife in The Man Who Wrote the 'Home Sweet Home' Never was a Married Man

and

The Half Hitch

and

The wife in The Molecatcher

and

The wife of The Wee Cooper o' Fife

There's such a lot of them!

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Anti-Heroines in Traditional Song?
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 10 Feb 10 - 05:48 PM

what about undrentide? bout a queen who goes mad after sleeping too long under a fairy tree... I think

Subject: RE: Anti-Heroines in Traditional Song?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 10 Feb 10 - 06:33 PM

Surely that 'Crafty Maid' and the like are heroines, not anti-heroines. Suppose it all depends on your perspective.

Subject: RE: Anti-Heroines in Traditional Song?
From: Emma B
Date: 10 Feb 10 - 06:38 PM

Thanks Uncle DaveO Aunt Clara is indeed an 'anti heroine' role model for us all :)

Subject: RE: Anti-Heroines in Traditional Song?
From: Snuffy
Date: 11 Feb 10 - 09:23 AM

Princess Janet, who not only gets herself pregnant by Willy o' Winsbury, but then has the cheek to tell bare-faced lies to her father: "I have not had any sore sickness, nor yet been sleeping with a man"

Shameless hussy: no heroine she.

Subject: RE: Anti-Heroines in Traditional Song?
From: Fred McCormick
Date: 11 Feb 10 - 10:46 AM

Dunno whether anyone's mentioned it, but Lady Isobel of Child 4 fame seems to me to be the perfect anti-heroine. First of all, she elopes with the elf knight, stealing her parents gold and money and two fine horses in the process. Then, when she discovers his real motives, she sweet talks him into turning his back while she strips naked, or else to bend perilously close to the water while he cuts the thistles so that they won't cut her lily white skin. Either way, she then pushes him in, tells him to get lost when he cries for help, rides home, returns the horses and the money, sweet talks the parrot into -covering for her, and climbs into bed as though nothing had happened.

Subject: RE: Anti-Heroines in Traditional Song?
From: Fred McCormick
Date: 11 Feb 10 - 10:47 AM

Come to think of it, the Female Highwayman didn't do so bad either.

Subject: RE: Anti-Heroines in Traditional Song?
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 11 Feb 10 - 11:23 AM

Heartless girls dumps her longstanding boyfriend and marries another bloke:

The False Bride

Shirley Collins sings         

I courted a bonny girl for many's the day,
And hated all people who 'gainst her did say.
But now she's rewarded me well for my pains
For she's gone to get tied to another.

The week before Easter, the morn bright and clear,
When the sun it shone brightly and keen blew the air,
I went down to the forest to gather fine flowers
But the forest won't yield me no roses.

The first time I saw my love it was to the church go,
The bride and the bridegroom they caught a fine show.
While I followed after, my heart full of woe,
For to see my love tied to another.

The parson that married them aloud he did cry,
All you'd who'd forbid it, I'd have you draw nigh.
Well, thought I to myself, I'd a good reason why,
Though I had not the heart to forbid it.

The next time I saw my love, it was in the church stand,
A gold ring on her finger, white gloves on her hand.
Thought I to myself, I should have been that man,
Though I'd never once mentioned to have her.

And the last time I saw my love, she was all dressed in white,
Made my eyes fill with tears, they quite dazzled my sight.
So I picked up my hat and I wished her good night,
Here's adieu to all false-hearted true loves.

The ladies and gentlemen they are all asking me,
“How many lilies grow in the salt sea?â€쳌
But I'll ask them back with a tear in my eye,
“How many ships sail in the forest?â€쳌

Go dig my grave both long, wide and deep,
And strew it all over with roses so sweet.
So that I might lie down there and take a long sleep
And that's the best way to forget her.

Subject: RE: Anti-Heroines in Traditional Song?
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 13 Feb 10 - 05:43 PM

Struck me, that the eponymous Katy of Katy Cruel, must be an anti-heroine of sorts. We don't know exactly why she's shunned and re-named 'cruel' by the town, but we can guess that she's a rebellious individual - perhaps a heartbeaker - who refuses to be pinned down and live according to conventional codes.

A rendering by Bert Jansch

Katy Cruel

When I first came to town
They called me the roving jewel
Now they've changed their tune
They call me Katy Cruel
Oh diddle day, oh diddle lie o day

    Oh that I was where I would be
    Then I would be where I am not
    Here I am where I must be
    Go where I would, I can not
    Oh diddle day, oh diddle lie o day

When I first came to town
They brought me the bottles plenty
Now they've changed their tune
They bring me the bottles empty
Oh diddle day, oh diddle lie o day

    CHORUS

I know who I love
And I know who does love me
I know where I'm going
And I know whose going with me
Oh diddle day, oh diddle lie o day

    CHORUS

Down the road I go
And through the boggy mire
Straight way cross the field
And to my heart's desire
Oh, diddle day, oh, diddle lie o day

    CHORUS

Subject: RE: Anti-Heroines in Traditional Song?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 13 Feb 10 - 06:47 PM

There are some much nastier verses than that to "the False Bride".

What about Anna Feyer?

Subject: RE: Anti-Heroines in Traditional Song?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 13 Feb 10 - 07:03 PM

The prostitute-murderess Mary McKinnon (in my Edinburgh songs collection):

McKinnon's Ghost

Subject: RE: Anti-Heroines in Traditional Song?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 13 Feb 10 - 10:34 PM

Sorry, I know tastes vary: but what a horrible fussy piddly-pom-pom Katy Cruel from that pseud Jansch! I have loved that song since Sandy Paton taught it to me at the Troubadour in Old Brompton Road in 1958, and, with all due modesty, I sing it a hell of a lot better than that: was always a fave among members when I ran a folk club near Cambridge 60s-70s.

Agree she will well qualify as anti-heroine tho ~ I am sure she well desrved the empty bottles...

Subject: RE: Anti-Heroines in Traditional Song?
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 14 Feb 10 - 03:04 AM

Thanks for Mary McKinnon Jack - she's definitely going on my list!

Sorry about Bert offending your sensibilities there MtheGM *smile*, this any better?
Cordelia's Dad
I think this is pretty good actually.
I like to rummage through YouTube and compare as many different interpretations of traditional songs as possible (as most of these songs are new to me).

As for Anna Freyer RB, can't seem to find her online bar a fragment of a lyric about a judge and some horses.

Subject: RE: Anti-Heroines in Traditional Song?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 14 Feb 10 - 04:23 AM

The song is Laszlo Feyer. The song might be Hungarian trad translated and arranged MacColl - or it might be MacColl pretending that one of his originals is Hungarian trad.

Laszlo Feyer stole a stallion, and is tried and convicted and sentenced to be hanged. His sister (Anna Feyer) learns, and goes with gold and six white horses to buy her brother's freedom. The judge says that only "her sweet favour" will do. While the judge takes her virginity in his golden bed at midnight she hears the gallows groaning, and Laszlo's body is re-hanged in the pine forest to rot.

Then she produces the most magnificent curse on the judge

"Cursed be that judge so cruel
Thirteen years may he lie bleeding
Thirteen doctors cannot cure him
Thirteen shelves of drugs can't cure him".

We are not told of the effect of the curse - but you could always add a verse that did just that (folk process)!

Subject: RE: Anti-Heroines in Traditional Song?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 14 Feb 10 - 05:07 AM

"Feher Anna" or "Feher Laszlo" (depending on which of them you want to name the song after) is one of the most widespread Hungarian ballads. There must be more variants of it than there are of "Barbara Allen". A quick YouTube search should come up with a few, with tunes related neither to each other nor to the usual English translated version.

Subject: RE: Anti-Heroines in Traditional Song?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 14 Feb 10 - 05:43 AM

CS, thank you for that alternative Katy Cruel. I too always flick thru different versions offered on Utube; for this one, liked best the three unaccompanied unison ladies from Gloucester Hornpipe & Clog Society.

~ Michael ~

Subject: RE: Anti-Heroines in Traditional Song?
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 14 Feb 10 - 05:52 AM

I Am Eve

Mé Éva, ben Ádaim uill
Mé ro sáraig Ísu thall
Mé ro thall nem ar mo chloinn
Cóir is mé do-chóid sa crann

Mé Éva, ben Ádaim uill
Mé ro sáraig Ísu thall
Mé ro thall nem ar mo chloinn
Cóir is mé do-chóid sa crann

Ropa lem rigtheg dom réir
Olc in mithoga rom-thár
Olc in cosc cinad rom-chrin
For-ír! Ni hidan mo lám

Mé Éva, ben Ádaim uill
Mé ro sáraig Ísu thall
Mé ro thall nem ar mo chloinn
Cóir is mé do-chóid sa crann

Mé tuc in n-uball an-úas
Do-chúaid t ar cumang mo chraís
In céin marat-sam re lá
De ní scarat mná re bats

Ní bíad eigredd in cach dú
Ní bíad geimred gaethmar glé
Ní bíad iffern, ní bíad brón
Ní bíad oman, minbad mé

Mé Éva, ben Ádaim uill
Mé ro sáraig Ísu thall
Mé ro thall nem ar mo chloinn
Cóir is mé do-chóid sa crann

Mé Éva, ben Ádaim uill
Mé ro sáraig Ísu thall
Mé ro thall nem ar mo chloinn
Cóir is mé do-chóid sa crann

Mé Éva, ben Ádaim uill
Mé ro sáraig Ísu thall
Mé ro thall nem ar mo chloinn
Cóir is mé do-chóid sa crann

Mé Éva, ben Ádaim uill
Mé ro sáraig Ísu thall
Mé ro thall nem ar mo chloinn
Cóir is mé do-chóid sa crann

Mé Éva, ben Ádaim uill
Mé ro sáraig Ísu thall
Mé ro thall nem ar mo chloinn
Cóir is mé do-chóid sa crann

Mé Éva, ben Ádaim uill
Mé ro sáraig Ísu thall
Mé ro thall nem ar mo chloinn
Cóir is mé do-chóid sa crann

Mé Éva, ben Ádaim uill
Mé ro sáraig Ísu thall
Mé ro thall nem ar mo chloinn
Cóir is mé do-chóid sa crann

Mé Éva, ben Ádaim uill
Mé ro sáraig Ísu thall
Mé ro thall nem ar mo chloinn
Cóir is mé do-chóid sa crann

English translation

i am eve great adam's wife
it is i that outraged jesus of old
it is i that stole heaven from my children
by rights it is i that should have gone upon the tree

i had a kingly house at my command
grievous the evil choice that disgraced me grievous
the chastisement of the crime that has withered me
alas my hand is not clean

it is i that plucked the apple
it overcame the control of my greed
for that women will not cease from folly
as long as they live in the light of day

there would be no ice in any place
there would be no glistening windy winter
there would be no hell there would be no sorrow
there would be no fear were it not for me

Subject: RE: Anti-Heroines in Traditional Song?
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 16 Feb 10 - 07:57 AM

Who wrote 'I am Eve'? someone in the Medaeval Babes?

Wondering if there are any other songs about Eve, surely the first anti-heroine and model of all subsequent.

Subject: RE: Anti-Heroines in Traditional Song?
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 16 Feb 10 - 03:01 PM

I Am Eve

Words = Irish 11th Century - Anonymous

Music Katherine Blake, Mediaeval Baebes, The Rose cd

Subject: RE: Anti-Heroines in Traditional Song?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 16 Feb 10 - 05:20 PM

Another one: Clerk Colvil (Child 42). Colvil has sex with a mermaid (and "nor of his lady speer'd he leave"), immediately develops an excruciating headache, and she gleefully tells him it will get worse and worse until he dies, which he does the same night.

I posted about this on uk.music.folk a few years ago, after reading Quétel's "History of Syphilis". I believe the medical evidence dates this song very precisely, from the mid-1490s to 1508 at the latest. The reason is that the early phase of the syphilis epidemic in Europe was a far more virulent illness, but it seems to have mutated to something milder within ten years. The characteristic symptom of the early form was that it attacked the bones in the subacute (secondary) phase, within a few weeks. The disease ate the bones away from inside, causing limb fractures and excruciating pain, often intense headache as the bones of the skull disintegrated. Other organ systems could also be affected (sometimes causing death from internal rupturing); Quétel also describes one case of a man whose penis swelled so much from the disease that he couldn't get the fingers of both hands round it. This early form was frequently fatal within months, something that virtually never occurred after 1510. (If you survived a couple of years, the pain would subside and you'd only have gummatous ulcerations to deal with, unless you lived long enough to have the disease affect the brain and nervous system - most people in the late Middle Ages would die of something else first).

So, Colvil's illness fits this early form of syphilis pretty well, allowing for a bit of poetic licence in killing him off the same day. The song is a public health warning about raping mermaids.

Subject: RE: Anti-Heroines in Traditional Song?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 16 Feb 10 - 06:13 PM

Subject: RE: Anti-Heroines in Traditional Song?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 16 Feb 10 - 08:02 PM

In a somewhat lighter vein and perhaps not quite traditional yet:

Tom Lehrer's "Alma"

(Most of Lehrer's songs have MIDI files with the lyrics, this one doesn't).

Subject: RE: Anti-Heroines in Traditional Song?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 16 Feb 10 - 08:59 PM

Come to think of it, it's consensual between Colven and the mermaid. The one whose leave he isn't asking is the girlfriend he's left at home.

Subject: RE: Anti-Heroines in Traditional Song?
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Feb 10 - 09:20 PM

dick greenhaus here, from a different puder

Young Charlotte (the frozen one)

The Lady of Carlyle (who dropped a glove in the lion's den)

The mothers in Mother's Malison and in Lord Gregory And there's always Mrs. Todd, the barber's wife

Subject: RE: Anti-Heroines in Traditional Song?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 16 Feb 10 - 11:02 PM

Worth mentioning here the retelling by C19 poet of The Lady Of Carlyle, Leigh Hunt's The Glove & The Lions, which draws a somewhat different moral from that of the folk version:

She dropped her glove, to prove his love, then looked at him and smiled;
            He bowed, and in a moment leaped among the lions wild:
            The leap was quick, return was quick, he has regained his place,
            Then threw the glove, but not with love, right in the lady's face.
            "By God!" said Francis, "rightly done!" and he rose from where he sat:
            "No love," quoth he, "but vanity, sets love a task like that."

Subject: RE: Anti-Heroines in Traditional Song?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 17 Feb 10 - 02:06 AM

,,, & Dick Greenhaus [& others who make similar suggestions] ~ the Mothers in Gregory & Malison are NOT 'anti-heroines'; they are VILLAINESSES: an important semantic & taxonomical distinction that must be maintained if this thread is to make any sense.

Subject: RE: Anti-Heroines in Traditional Song?
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 17 Feb 10 - 05:24 AM

Found lyrics to Clerk Colvill, but no Midi - which is a bummer:

Clerk Colvill

Subject: RE: Anti-Heroines in Traditional Song?
From: freda underhill
Date: 17 Feb 10 - 05:37 AM

from a more reecent tradition.
Loreena's Lament

(sung to the tune of the Banks of the Ohio)

I told my love go take a walk
Take a walk just a little walk
Down beside where the waters flow
Down by the banks of the Ohio

CH
And only say that you'll be mine
And in no others arms entwine
Down beside where the waters flow
Down by the banks of the Ohio

I took a knife unto his dick
And sliced right through that cheatin'prick
He cried Loreena don't ya mutilate me
I'm not prepared for celibacy

And only say that you'll be mine
And in no others arms entwine
Down beside where the waters flow
Down by the banks of the Ohio

I drove my car through the lonely night
And tossed that old fella off to the right
He dialed triple 9 for emergency
They found his manhood beneath a tree

And only say…etc

The po-lice man he didn't blink
He said Loreena you need a shrink
He said Loreena that just wasn't nice
And he thrust that dick on frozen ice

And only say…etc

The doctor came and sewed him up
I wept into my empty cup
He made a million on cheap porn flix
They counseled me and I got nix

And only say that you'll be mine
And in no others' arms entwine
Down beside where the waters flow
Down by the banks of the Ohio

Subject: RE: Anti-Heroines in Traditional Song?
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 17 Feb 10 - 05:38 AM

Ah, this is much better. From Digital Tradition Mirror:

Clerk Colvill

Subject: RE: Anti-Heroines in Traditional Song?
From: Artful Codger
Date: 17 Feb 10 - 05:56 AM

Eve features in "Man Smart (Woman Smarter)," but she's only one of the anti-heroines, and none of them are particularly evil, just temptresses getting what they want.

Similarly, "Don't Bring Lulu" and "Whatever Lola Wants".

"The Female Robber" and "The Female Smuggler" are closer to the mark.

Subject: RE: Anti-Heroines in Traditional Song?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 17 Feb 10 - 05:57 AM

That mirrored version of Clerk Colvil/Colven has been drastically rewritten, and not for the better - the one in Bronson (and the Digitrad) is the version to go for.

Subject: RE: Anti-Heroines in Traditional Song?
From: theleveller
Date: 17 Feb 10 - 06:43 AM

Well, there's the "false woman" in Two Butchers who slew Johnson, the Queen of Fairies in Tam Lin amd the landlady in Radcliffe Highway.

Subject: RE: Anti-Heroines in Traditional Song?
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 26 Feb 10 - 11:26 AM

American traditional song 'Sea Lion Woman' (See Line Woman / C-Line Woman etc.) which is thought to be a corruption of 'see the lying woman', I think fits in with the anti-heroine remit.

Lots of remixes out there of the Nina Simone classic (which is the way I first heard it), here's another take by Christine and Katherine Shipp She Began to Lie

Subject: RE: Anti-Heroines in Traditional Song?
From: Richard Mellish
Date: 27 Feb 10 - 01:34 PM

Crow Sister said

> Ah, this is much better. From Digital Tradition Mirror:

with a link to http://sniff.numachi.com/pages/tiCLRKCLVL;ttCLRKCLVL.html

but I am finding that the links from that page to the music don't work.

Then Jack Campin said

> That mirrored version of Clerk Colvil/Colven has been drastically rewritten, and not for the better - the one in Bronson (and the Digitrad) is the version to go for.

but the words on that page are exactly the same as those at http://www.mudcat.org/@displaysong.cfm?SongID=1213

Confused of Harrow

Subject: RE: Anti-Heroines in Traditional Song?
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 27 Feb 10 - 04:16 PM

"but I am finding that the links from that page to the music don't work."

Odd. When I posted that link, everything linked to on the mirror was working fine. But now even the score is missing. That's frustrating as I haven't memorised the melody yet.

Subject: RE: Anti-Heroines in Traditional Song?
From: GUEST,mayomick
Date: 27 Feb 10 - 06:28 PM

The cruel nourice (nurse) in Lamkin .

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
LAMKIN

It's Lamkin was a mason good
As ever built wi' stane,
He built Lord Wearie's castle
But payment he got nane.

But the nourice was a fause limmer
As e'er hung on a tree;
She laid a plot wi' Lamkin,
Whan her lord was o'er the sea.

She laid a plot wi' Lamkin,
When the servants were awa'
Loot him in at a little shot-window
And brought him to the ha'.

"Oh whare's the lady o' this house
That ca's me Lamkin?"
"She's up in her bower sewing
But we soon can bring her down.

Then Lamkin's ta'en a sharp knife
That hung down by his gair
And he has gien the bonny babe
A deep wound and a sair.

Then Lamkin he rocked,
And the fause nourice sang
Till frae ilka bore o' the cradle
The red blood out sprang.

"Oh still my bairn, nourice,
Oh still him wi' the pap!"
"He winna still, lady,
For this nor for that."

"Oh still my bairn, nourice,
Oh still him wi' the bell!"
"He winna still, lady,
Till ye come down yoursel."

Oh the firsten step she steppit
She steppit on a stane;
But the neisten step she steppit
She met him --- Lamkin.

"Oh sall I kill her, nourice,
Or sall I lat her be?"
"Oh kill her, kill her, Lamkin'
For she ne'er was good to me."

"Oh scour the bason, nourice,
And mak' it fair and clean,
For to keep this lady's heart's blood,
For she's come o' noble kin."

"There need nae bason, Lamkin,
Lat it run through the floor;
What better is the heart's blood
O' the rich than o' the poor?"

But ere three months were at an end,
Lord Wearie came again;
"Oh, wha's blood is this" he says,
"That lies in my hame?"

"Oh, wha's blood," says Lord Wearie,
"Is this on my ha'?"
"It is your young son's heart's blood,
It's the clearest ava'."

Oh sweetly sang the blackbird
That sat upon the tree;
But sairer grat Lannkin,
When he was condemned to dee.

And bonny sang the mavis,
Oot o'the thorny brake;
But sairer grat the nourice,
When she was burnt at the stake.

Subject: RE: Anti-Heroines in Traditional Song?
From: GUEST,CS
Date: 09 Apr 10 - 09:32 AM

This was proposed as a possible song for this thread by Jack Campin elsewhere. Unsure if it strictly fits in here, but maybe it does? Anyway I decided to add it along with another traditional song about a woman wreaking her own form of vengeance on an abusive husband. Neither are possibly very PC, but then arguably neither is infanticide or any number of the themes covered by this thread..

Blue Bleezing Blind Drunk

I'll go and I'll get blue bleezing blind drunk
Just to give Mickey a warning
And just for to spite I will stay out all night
And come rolling home drunk in the morning

Now friends, I have a sad story
A very sad story to tell
I married a man for his money
And he's worse than the devil himself

For when Mickey comes home in the evening
He batters me all black and blue
He knocks me about from the kitchen
From the bedroom right through to the room

For of whiskey I ne'er was a lover
But what can a poor woman do
I'll go and I'll drown all my sorrows
But I wish I could drown Mickey too

Recorded by Sheila Stewart (Stewarts of Blair)
SOF

Blue Bleezing Blind Drunk

Including a link to the Winterset's rendition above. Personally I found the first half of this almost unendurable and as someone who quite frankly knows how it is to be both physically assaulted and get properly drunk too, I found the delivery impossible to believe. The second half clearly represents a shift in character however, though I find it too jaunty to describe anyone I know that's been genuinely knocked about. Anyway, it's possibly a tricky song to deal with, as has been mentioned elsewhere - but this is the only version on YouTube so I don't know how others have dealt with it.

Subject: RE: Anti-Heroines in Traditional Song?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 09 Apr 10 - 09:46 AM

There are other versions on Spotify, including Sheila Stewart's.

Subject: RE: Anti-Heroines in Traditional Song?
From: GUEST,CS
Date: 09 Apr 10 - 09:46 AM

A second battered wife 'vengeance' song, though rather less tragic (or indeed realistic) than the first. This time she's not resorting to alcohol as a (rather disempowered) means to spite him, but her *wits*, and of course she wins out in the end too as "it's goodbye to a drunken husband". So arguably the comedic feel to the song, is less troubling. Or maybe not. That's my take on it anyhoo.

Stitch in Time

Oh there was a woman and she lived on her own,
She slaved on her own and she skivvied on her own,
She'd two little girls and two little boys --
And she lived all alone with her husband.

For her husband he was a hunk of a man
A chunk of a man and a drunk of a man,
He was a hunk of a drunk and a skunk of a man
Such a boozing, bruising husband.

For he would come home drunk each night,
He thrashed her black, he thrashed her white;
He thrashed her, too, within an inch of her life,
Then he slept like a log, did her husband.

One night she gathered her tears all round her shame
She thought of the bruising and cried with the pain,
Oh, you'll not do that ever again,
I won't live with a drunken husband.

But as he lay and snored in bed,
A strange old thought came into her head,
She went for the needle, went for the thread,
And went straight in to her sleeping husband.

And she started to stitch with a girlish thrill
With a woman's heart and a seamstress' skill,
She bibbed and tucked with an iron will,
All around her sleeping husband.

Oh, the top sheet, the bottom sheet, too,
The blanket stitched to the mattress through,
She stitched and stitched for the whole night through
Then she waited for the dawn and her husband.

And when her husband woke with a pain in his head,
He found that he could not move in bed,
Sweet Christ, I've lost the use of me legs!
But this wife just smiled at her husband.

For in her hand she held the frying pan
With a flutter in her heart she given him a lam;
He could not move but he cried, ``God damn!''
``Don't you swear,'' she cried to her husband.

Then she thrashed him black, she thrashed him blue,
With the frying pan and the colander too,
With the rolling pin just a stroke or two
Such a battered and bleeding husband.

She said, ``If you ever come home drunk any more,
I'll stitch you in, I'll thrash you more,
Then I'll pack my bag and I'll be out the door,
I'll not live with a drunken husband.''

So isn't it true what small can do
With a thread and a thought and a stitch or two?
He's wiped his slate and his boozing's through
It's goodbye to a drunken husband.

Here's the young Lucy Ward singing it A Cappella (flagged up by Leveller elsewhere). I was pretty taken with her delivery: A Stitch in Time

Subject: RE: Anti-Heroines in Traditional Song?
From: LadyJean
Date: 10 Apr 10 - 01:43 AM

Nobody's mentioned Eppie Maurie, a favorite of mine for years. You have to love a woman who beats the tar out of her abductor.
Then of course there's Mary Hamilton, the royal mistress who drowns her baby.

Then there's Fanny Blair who perjured herself to hang young Higgens.

Or the nameless lady of the Long Black Veil.

Subject: RE: Anti-Heroines in Traditional Song?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 10 Apr 10 - 06:31 AM

Eppie Morrie ~~ just a heroine; what's supposed to be "anti-" about her? She defies and defeats her dishonorable abductor & his companions ~~ what's anti-heroic there?

Fanny Blair ~~ a straight villainess: not any kind of heroine, even an "anti-" one.

I'm getting tired of pointing out that an anti-heroine is not the same thing as a female villain. Can people really not comprehend this vital distinction?

~Michael~

Subject: RE: Anti-Heroines in Traditional Song?
From: GUEST,CS
Date: 10 Apr 10 - 06:45 AM

I guess I could ask Joe to alter the title to include Villainesses?

Otherwise I found this silly quiz for anyone interested in finally and scientifically determining whether a character in a song - or indeed they themselves - be a Heroine, Ant-Heroine or Villainess ;-)

I ended up an Anti-Heroine - yay!

Subject: RE: Anti-Heroines in Traditional Song?
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 15 May 10 - 08:55 AM

Can't recall if anyone's mentioned Child 95 'Maid Freed From the Gallows' or 'The Prickle Eye Bush' yet? But it just dawned on me as a perfect candidate for this thread. Bunch of variants at SacredTexts.Com: Maid Freed from the Gallows

Subject: RE: Anti-Heroines in Traditional Song?
From: Leadfingers
Date: 16 May 10 - 04:49 AM

100