Songs about Incest

20 Nov 03 - 11:21 PM (#1058254)
Subject: Songs about INCEST.
From: GUEST,[e-mail]

I'm looking for songs that deal with the taboo of incestual relations. I have managed to find a few like "Sheath and Knife", "Brown Robyn's Confession", and "The Orphans Wedding"--most of them are from Child. Does anyone have any other suggestions? Any songs or song versions distincly from the States? Any songs relating to familial relations of an incestual sort that are not explicitly treated as taboo? Thanks for any help.

Per

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20 Nov 03 - 11:47 PM (#1058262)
Subject: RE: Songs about INCEST.
From: Bill D

Lucy/Lizzie Wan

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20 Nov 03 - 11:48 PM (#1058264)
Subject: RE: Songs about INCEST.
From: Joe Offer

Hi - the DT Keywords search in our dropdown QuickLinks menu will take you to the nine we have listed in the "incest" category in the Digital Tradition, but I'm sure we have more. Here's the list:

• BONNY HIND
• BROWN ROBYN'S CONFESSION
• KING'S DAUGHTER JANE
• LADY JEAN
• LIZZIE WAN
• SHEATH AND KNIFE
• SHEATH AND KNIFE 2
• THE ORPHANS' WEDDING
• THE WELL BELOW THE VALLEY

Also make a search for incest at the Traditional Ballad Index. You'll come up with this list:

1. Stella Kenney [Laws F37]
   http://www.csufresno.edu/folklore/ballads/LF37.html
2. Sheath and Knife [Child 16]
   http://www.csufresno.edu/folklore/ballads/C016.html
3. My Husband's a Mason
   http://www.csufresno.edu/folklore/ballads/EM055.html
4. Maria Bewell
   http://www.csufresno.edu/folklore/ballads/E120.html
5. Lizie Wan [Child 51]
   http://www.csufresno.edu/folklore/ballads/C051.html
6. King's Dochter Lady Jean, The [Child 52]
   http://www.csufresno.edu/folklore/ballads/C052.html
7. Brown Robyn's Confession [Child 57]
   http://www.csufresno.edu/folklore/ballads/C057.html
8. Bonnie Hind, The [Child 50]
   http://www.csufresno.edu/folklore/ballads/C050.html
9. Babylon, or, The Bonnie Banks o Fordie [Child 14]
   http://www.csufresno.edu/folklore/ballads/C014.html

I think we have at least one version of all these songs.
-Joe Offer-

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21 Nov 03 - 12:06 AM (#1058272)
Subject: RE: Songs about INCEST.
From: GUEST,Sieffe

The song sung by Hedy West in America (and by my self in New Zealand!)called "Fair Rosamund" is an incestual reference, albeit unwanted by Rosamund . . . .she curses her brother Clifford for it . . she was a concubine of King Henry the ? . . . .never did find out which bastard king of England that was . . . .

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21 Nov 03 - 12:43 AM (#1058279)
Subject: RE: Songs about INCEST.
From: Mudlark

All songs so far are traditional...is that the only kind you are looking for? Contemporary singer-songwriters have dealt with this subject also, i.e. Suzanne Vega's Bad Wisdom.

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21 Nov 03 - 12:51 AM (#1058281)
Subject: RE: Songs about INCEST.
From: PapaWhiskey

Buffy Sainte Marie did a song named "The Incest Song" back in the sixties which springs to mind.

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21 Nov 03 - 01:06 AM (#1058283)
Subject: RE: Songs about INCEST.
From: Margret RoadKnight

Contemporary American -
Peter Alsop's "Look At T e Ceiling" from his "Uniforms" album

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21 Nov 03 - 01:22 AM (#1058285)
Subject: RE: Songs about INCEST.
From: GUEST,smithp

I'm only looking for "traditional" songs in the sense that they would come from the folk tradition ... at least to some extent. but they don't have to be traditional ballads, or to be referenced in some index like Child's or Laws'. However, songs written within the last 30 years by commercial artists who are performing (and copywriting) those songs are not exactly what I am looking for (if that answers anything).   Thanks for all the help so far and I'm looking forward to hearing from more of you!

Per

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21 Nov 03 - 05:08 AM (#1058337)
Subject: RE: Songs about INCEST.
From: Dave Bryant

That's a pity - I was going to suggest Tom Lehrer's "Oedipus Rex".

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21 Nov 03 - 05:21 AM (#1058342)
Subject: RE: Songs about INCEST.
From: Susan of DT

You already have the traditional ones in Child. Sieffe - that is Henry II with Fair Rosamund Clifford and her brother did not necessarily sleep with her - just brag about how beautiful she was in the king's hearing.

What about newer funny ones like "I'm my own Grandpa" and "Shame and Scandal" and its relatives?

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21 Nov 03 - 05:51 AM (#1058358)
Subject: RE: Songs about INCEST.
From: greg stephens

"A boy's best friend is his mother"

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21 Nov 03 - 05:55 AM (#1058362)
Subject: RE: Songs about INCEST.
From: MartinRyan

What was the modern one about a separated pair of war orphans who end up marrying - and then get a visit from the Man from the Ministry? The tune is running around in my head - but no words, despite it being a powerful song.

Regards

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21 Nov 03 - 06:24 AM (#1058369)
Subject: RE: Songs about INCEST.
From: MartinRyan

The Stranger Who told me my name?

Regards

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21 Nov 03 - 06:25 AM (#1058370)
Subject: RE: Songs about INCEST.
From: MartinRyan

Got it! Its "The Orphan's Wedding" and its in the DT.

Regards

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21 Nov 03 - 08:07 AM (#1058415)
Subject: RE: Songs about INCEST.
From: JedMarum

Brian McNeill produced a wonderful collection of songs in a 2 CDs set called simply, SCOTS WOMEN. On it there is a stunning song called Dear RoseyAnne which details an incestuous relationship.

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21 Nov 03 - 08:21 AM (#1058420)
Subject: RE: Songs about INCEST.
From: wysiwyg

So, what do you need these for? Maybe that would help us think about song suggestions more accurately.

~S~

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21 Nov 03 - 08:23 AM (#1058421)
Subject: RE: Songs about INCEST.
From: JedMarum

sorry, the song is called, "Fair Rosie Ann." You can read more about the album here. I have to say it is a moving and beautiful song. It haunted me for days the first time I heard it.

The album is also truly remarkable. If I only had one album to take with me to a deserted isle, this would be it.

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21 Nov 03 - 08:23 AM (#1058422)
Subject: RE: Songs about INCEST.
From: Beer

Iris DeMent has a great song titled " Letter to Mom" not really incest, but close.

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21 Nov 03 - 08:30 AM (#1058427)
Subject: RE: Songs about INCEST.
From: JedMarum

a bit more digging and I see that "Fair Rosie Ann" is a version of "KINGS DAUGHTER LADY JEAN" or "KING'S DAUGHTER JANE" listed above. The lyrics are very similar to those used on the SCOTS WOMEN cd.

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21 Nov 03 - 05:38 PM (#1058762)
Subject: RE: Songs about INCEST.
From: ddw

The country father-daughter duo of Royce and Jeannie Kendall used to sing a song called "Heaven's Just A Sin Away" which always made me wonder.....

cheers,

david

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21 Nov 03 - 05:41 PM (#1058765)
Subject: RE: Songs about INCEST.
From: GUEST,ClaireBear

Me too! That song made my skin crawl.

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21 Nov 03 - 09:16 PM (#1058901)
Subject: RE: Songs about INCEST.
From: Uncle_DaveO

Child #11, I believe it is, The Cruel Brother, has a variant I've heard, which may be described as follows:

The story line, grossly compressed, is that a suitor is told by his wished-for bride to ask this and that and the other relative for permission to marry her, "and do not forget my brother John".

Wouldn't you know, he asks everybody but Bubba John.

They are married, and are mounting horses to leave when her brother John, under pretense of giving her a last hug or kiss, stabs her.

She asks to be taken (or goes by herself?) to a hilltop. The traditional questions are asked about, "What will you leave to....", and she says to give her mother "the dress that I die in". and also
to "Tell her to wash it in yonder stream. My heart's blood flows in every seam." (POWERFUL!)

To brother John she leaves something like the hangman's rope.

"What will you leave to your brother's wife? My curse and grief for all her life."

I get the overtone from this ballad that her brother has been her lover, that it's about incest in the background. He didn't stab her just because somebody didn't do the courteous thing and ask him.


Dave Oesterreich

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21 Nov 03 - 10:24 PM (#1058927)
Subject: RE: Songs about INCEST.
From: YorkshireYankee

And there's "The Dowie Dens of Yarrow" in the DT (0.7742) -- very similar plot to "Cruel Brother", but possibly too subtle for what you want -- as the incest (again) has to be deduced.

Cheers,

YY

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22 Nov 03 - 12:08 AM (#1058962)
Subject: RE: Songs about INCEST.
From: Malcolm Douglas

There is no demonstrable incest motif in Yarrow, though some people seem to have misunderstood the ambiguous wording of one version in particular (I forget which, but it's been discussed here, speculation and all, in the past) and read into it a meaning which really is not there. I doubt very much if there is any incestuous sub-text in The Cruel Brother, either; but that won't stop people imagining one, and of course I can't prove that there isn't, though there is no evidence that I'm aware of to suggest that there is.

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22 Nov 03 - 06:58 AM (#1059016)
Subject: RE: Songs about INCEST.
From: GUEST,Diva

Acoording to Atkinson's "Traditional English Ballad" the incest motif runs through Twa Brithers and Son David.

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22 Nov 03 - 07:55 AM (#1059028)
Subject: RE: Songs about INCEST.
From: Snuffy

For there is no trust in man
Not my own own brother
So girls, if you would love
Love one each other

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22 Nov 03 - 10:13 AM (#1059071)
Subject: RE: Songs about INCEST.
From: jaze

Cherokee Louise by Joni Mitchell

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25 Nov 03 - 09:41 AM (#1060558)
Subject: RE: Songs about INCEST.
From: GUEST,smithp

I just wanted to thank everyone who responded to my inquiry about songs with an incestual motif. You have all been very helpful. Thank you greatly.

Per Smith

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25 Nov 03 - 12:01 PM (#1060628)
Subject: RE: Songs about INCEST.
From: Dave Sutherland

There is the chilling Scots ballad "Childe Owlett" where the nephew of Lord Erskine is propositioned by Lady Erskine. He spurns her advances and suffers dire consequences. Not quite incest but almost.

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26 Nov 03 - 04:40 AM (#1061175)
Subject: RE: Songs about INCEST.
From: Dave Hanson

incest, a game for all the family

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26 Nov 03 - 05:29 PM (#1061564)
Subject: RE: Songs about INCEST.
From: swampy-the-spark

call it incest but I WAN'T MY MUMMY !!!!

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26 Nov 03 - 05:37 PM (#1061568)
Subject: RE: Songs about INCEST.
From: PoppaGator

Q: Why did the hillbilly refuse to marry a virgin?

A: "If she ain't good enough for her kinfolk, she ain't good enough for me!"

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27 Nov 03 - 05:07 AM (#1061864)
Subject: RE: Songs about INCEST.
From: fogie

I've got a feeling about the poems of A.E. Housemans A Shropshire lad that some are concealing a darker level. Take Farewell to barn and stack and tree, Farewell to Severn shore, It has a line "By now the blood is dried, and Maurice mongst the hay lies still and my knife is in his side" this Cruel brother type poem has an eerie afterfeel. Check it out.

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27 Nov 03 - 11:28 AM (#1062038)
Subject: RE: Songs about INCEST.
From: ced2

Local archives in Norfolk may be worth a search!

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28 Nov 03 - 05:10 AM (#1062394)
Subject: RE: Songs about INCEST.
From: GUEST,Pavane

I understand that Two Brothers/Edward is thought to be about it but not explicitly

("All about a little holly bush that might have made a tree" in at least one version)

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28 Nov 03 - 08:06 AM (#1062489)
Subject: Lyr Add: JOHNNY BE FAIR
From: John P

Here's a humorous song about the incest taboo. I don't know who wrote it or where it's from.
JP

Johnny Be Fair

Oh Johnny be fair
and Johnny be fine
he wants me for to wed.
And I would marry Johnny
but my father up and said.
"I'm sad to tell you daughter
what your mother never knew.
That Johnny to is a son of mine
and so he's kin to you."

Oh Billy be fair
and Billy be fine. . .

Oh Jimmy be fair
and Jimmy be fine. . .

Well you never seen
a girl so sad and sorry as I was.
The boys in town are all my kin and
my father is the cause.
If life should thus continue
I shall die a single miss
so I go to my mother
and complain to her of this.

Oh daughter didn't I
teach you to forgive and to forget.
Your father might have
sowed his oats but
still you needn't fret.
Your father may be
father to all the boys
in town but still....
He's not the one who sired you
so marry who you will.

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"Johnny Be Fair" was written by Buffy Sainte-Marie. She told us she wrote the song to to tell the story of a joke she heard. More at https://mudcat.org/@displaysong.cfm?SongID=3266 and the threads you'll find crosslinked there.
-Joe Offer, Mudcat Music Editor-

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24 Jul 06 - 01:54 PM (#1791819)
Subject: RE: Songs about INCEST.
From: GUEST,Cheizi

"Lament of a Pretty Baby" by Cursive

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24 Jul 06 - 02:05 PM (#1791829)
Subject: RE: Songs about INCEST.
From: GUEST,Jack Campin

If you're looking beyond English, there's the story of Kullervo in the "Kalevala".

Or the story of Siegfried and Sieglinde in Wagner's Ring cycle - are there any traditional songs incorporating that myth?

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24 Jul 06 - 03:35 PM (#1791907)
Subject: RE: Songs about INCEST.
From: sapper82

Buggery is boring,
Necrophillia is dead boring,
But Incest is only relatively boring.

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24 Jul 06 - 04:24 PM (#1791943)
Subject: RE: Songs about INCEST.
From: Slag

"I'm My Own Grandpa"!

Also I seem to remember an old C&W song called "The Eddypuss Wreck" but I may be wrong on that and it's not really in the Folk tradition anyway.

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24 Jul 06 - 04:43 PM (#1791951)
Subject: RE: Songs about INCEST.
From: Leadfingers

Sapper - Is Bestiality boring your best friend ??

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24 Jul 06 - 04:43 PM (#1791952)
Subject: RE: Songs about INCEST.
From: JohnInKansas

As the original requestor who wanted only traditional songs has apparently been satisfied, it might be a good thing to add some of the more recent ones for others who might stumble onto the thread.

A start would be to note that "Johnny Be Fair" posted by John P at 28 Nov 03 - 08:06 AM is exactly the "plot" of "Elma Turl" popularly performed by Mike Cross. I'd rather suspected an "older origin" but must have missed this thread when it was fresh. Another old thread recently brought back up gave a writer - not Mike - but I've lost it.

Another Mike Cross song, I think called just "Bill," (perhaps Bill's Funeral?) has a verse describing how Bill "burned his brothers business, and ran off with his wife," but I'm not sure ... ... do in-laws qualify as incest(?).

John

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24 Jul 06 - 06:48 PM (#1792058)
Subject: RE: Songs about INCEST.
From: Georgiansilver

There's a game that you can play,
At any time of day.
The best game there has ever been,
In every blooming way.
Play it in the morning,
After dinner, after tea.
Incest, a game by Waddingtons,
For all the family.

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24 Jul 06 - 07:30 PM (#1792099)
Subject: RE: Songs about INCEST.
From: Folkiedave

Best kept in the family - the best families that lay together stay together.

In a the town where Kate Rusby comes from, when the families meet before the wedding the male parents ask the female parents if the father has slept with the daughter (then, brothers, male cousins etc.) if they answer "no" then the wedding is called off on the grounds that if she is not good enough for their own family then she is not good enough for strangers!

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25 Jul 06 - 01:44 PM (#1792878)
Subject: RE: Songs about INCEST.
From: Cool Beans

"The Boll Weevil"
"The Ants Go Marching"
"Never Swat a Fly"
Oh, INCEST. Never mind.

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25 Jul 06 - 04:24 PM (#1793005)
Subject: RE: Songs about INCEST.
From: Naemanson

Incest is best, for the kin you love to touch.

A parody of an old soap commercial.

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05 Jan 09 - 01:48 PM (#2532202)
Subject: RE: Songs about INCEST.
From: GUEST,Sieffe

Quite right Susan . .I missed that point in my rush to supply a song! hahahaha!

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05 Jan 09 - 02:01 PM (#2532213)
Subject: RE: Songs about INCEST.
From: Acorn4

There are a duo called the Cleverly Brothers who turn up and play along the seafront at Sidmouth every year. they come from Radstock and treat the subject of inbreeding in a very humorous(if not PC)way -can't find any weblinks to them unfortunately.

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05 Jan 09 - 04:31 PM (#2532335)
Subject: RE: Songs about INCEST.
From: Tootler

See the thread on The Well Below the Valley

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05 Jan 09 - 05:48 PM (#2532397)
Subject: RE: Songs about INCEST.
From: oldhippie

I think the song is titled "Bottomless Well" by Shel Silverstein; Bobby Bare recorded it on his "Lullabys, Legends & Lies" LP and it contained the line "She said she was his wife and daughter, Lord Lord".

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06 Jan 09 - 06:50 AM (#2532722)
Subject: RE: Songs about INCEST.
From: GUEST,~Steamin' Willie Harddonn

Any song written in and about love in Norfolk...

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22 Jun 09 - 12:18 PM (#2662160)
Subject: RE: Songs about INCEST.
From: GUEST,Joelle

The Cruel Brother (child #11) is not about incest. But it makes sense that we would come to that conclusion today because the moral code of asking each member of the family for permission to marry has died away. So we search for some other reason her brother would have killed her. See "traditional tunes of the child ballads" by Bronson,

"I grant little credence to Barry's notion (BFSSNE, VII 1934 p. 8) of a veiled incest-motive behind the murder, not so much because of the repugnance of the idea as because the 'folk' would have felt little need to veil it, if that had been the point, and formerly would have found the motive sufficient without it" -(V. 1, p. 185)

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22 Jun 09 - 05:36 PM (#2662367)
Subject: RE: Songs about INCEST.
From: Diva

I sing a version of Sheath and Knife (Child 16)that I learned from Cy laurie

There was a sister and a brither
The sun gaes tae under the wid
Wha maist entirely loo'd each ither
God gif we had never been sib

etc

Joe Rae of Beith, a very fine source singer, also has a version The Broom Blooms Bonny and I think I might have heard him sing The Bonny Hind

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19 Jun 10 - 07:38 PM (#2931260)
Subject: RE: Songs about INCEST.
From: GUEST,Dario Western

The best known one is "Janie's Got A Gun" by Aerosmith. It went to No.1 in Australia in 1990.

The other one I know is "Fa La Fa Lee" by Sparks.

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20 Jun 10 - 06:17 PM (#2931661)
Subject: RE: Songs about Incest
From: Herga Kitty

Going back to Martin Ryan's post of 21 November 2003, it's The Orphans' Wedding by Andy M Stewart, and in the DT....

Kitty

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03 Nov 10 - 04:43 PM (#3022830)
Subject: RE: Songs about Incest
From: GUEST,Hilary

Technically, "I'm my own Grandpa" is not really incestuous because he's only his step grandfather. Anyway, there's one in Folk Songs of North America that's almost incest. The brother only asks his sisters to marry him, but they refuse, although they don't know he's their brother. It's called "Three Young Ladies," and from the maritimes. I think it might be a variant of one of Child's ballads, but I can't remember which one.

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03 Nov 10 - 05:43 PM (#3022876)
Subject: RE: Songs about Incest
From: Bill D

Yep... Child #11.. "The Cruel Brother"

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03 Nov 10 - 06:00 PM (#3022902)
Subject: RE: Songs about Incest
From: MGM·Lion

No-one seems to have mentioned the powerful Irish song sung by Packie Byrne, "The Rich Man's Daughter": she lies sick and sends a servant urgently, not, she stresses, for her parents, but for her brother. When he comes, she tells him she is with child by him. He, apparently sympathetically, offers his protection, & they ride away to the wood, where he stabs her to death & buries her where she will never be found ~~

So the rich man's daughter, she died that day,
And her baby died within her;
And the rich man's son still walks his way,
A vile and dreadful sinner.

As I say, a powerful and beautiful song.

~Michael~

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03 Nov 10 - 06:35 PM (#3022935)
Subject: RE: Songs about Incest
From: Bill D

Hmmm...I've never heard that one, Michael..I'll look for it.

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03 Nov 10 - 07:52 PM (#3023000)
Subject: RE: Songs about Incest
From: dick greenhaus

I want a girl
Just like the girl
That married dear old dad.

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03 Nov 10 - 08:11 PM (#3023012)
Subject: RE: Songs about Incest
From: Young Buchan

Lady Isabel has the accusation (denied) of incest:
'... You are your father's whore, Isabel;
It may be easy seen...'

Babylon has no fewer than three attempted incestuous rapes, all of them unwitting; two of them instead result in mere satricide.

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03 Nov 10 - 08:25 PM (#3023023)
Subject: RE: Songs about Incest
From: Bill D

'Babylon' = "The Cruel Brother"

Very few oral versions call it Babylon..

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03 Nov 10 - 08:32 PM (#3023031)
Subject: RE: Songs about Incest
From: GUEST,susanc

I was going to mention "Yarrow" but you'all got there before me. I know it's not overt but my rule of thumb is that whenever a bunch of brothers get together and kill their sister's true love, especially is there is a brother John, then there's incest, extreme jealousy or both involved.

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04 Nov 10 - 10:09 AM (#3023362)
Subject: RE: Songs about Incest
From: MGM·Lion

No, Bill: Babylon does not = 'The Cruel Brother', Child #11, but is 'Babylon, or The Banks Of Fordie', Child #14.

~Michael~

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04 Nov 10 - 10:44 AM (#3023383)
Subject: RE: Songs about Incest
From: GUEST,baz parkes

Bill D...as well as Packie's version, you might look out Peta Webb's. All the more spine tingling when sung by a woman...

I think it's on a recording she made with Pete Cooper.

Baz

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04 Nov 10 - 11:38 AM (#3023428)
Subject: RE: Songs about Incest
From: MGM·Lion

Point of interest, BTW, re Child 14, Babylon or The Banks Of Fordie: Child in his headnotes gives a synopsis of a Swedish version, which those with long cinematic memories will recognise as the source for Ingmar Bergman's fine film, The Virgin Spring [1960].

~Michael~

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04 Nov 10 - 01:07 PM (#3023501)
Subject: RE: Songs about Incest
From: Bill D

**blushing and heading down to bury my nose in Child to remind myself of the differences between #11 & #14**

I was 'hearing' "Bonnie Banks of Fordie" as a poem from my 8th grade book in my head, combining it with an images of "Three Young Ladies", and leaping & bounding to conclusions.

Ah, well...perhaps the stories had common roots back there somewhere....and perhaps I need to pay more attention, perhaps...maybe...mayhap....possibly.....

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13 Apr 13 - 11:11 AM (#3502758)
Subject: RE: Songs about Incest
From: Richard from Liverpool

Definitely traditional, sung by fans of Ipswich F.C. against their East Anglian rivals (tune: the Addams family):

Your sister is your mother
Your uncle is your brother
They're all shagging eachother
The Norwich family...

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13 Apr 13 - 11:44 AM (#3502767)
Subject: RE: Songs about Incest
From: GUEST

The Maid and the Palmer ?

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13 Apr 13 - 12:12 PM (#3502773)
Subject: RE: Songs about Incest
From: Susan of DT

Guest: Child #21 - Maid and the Palmer or Well Below the Valley or Jesus Met the Woman at the Well
Child #21
Here is another, but it does not mention the incest
another

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14 Apr 13 - 05:48 AM (#3503103)
Subject: RE: Songs about Incest
From: Gutcher

In Sheath and Knife we know that the phrase "They daurna gwang doon tae the broom ony mare" is an 18th.C euphemism for hoochmagandy. As a reader of obscure publications I recently came across another euphemism for incestious relations between fathers and daughters. Relating to the time when farmers used oxen to pull their plows, this claimed that an old farmer was "plowing with his own heifers"and I am sure that this allusion, from the obscurity of the work in which it appears, has escaped the notice of those with an academic interest in the subject.

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16 Apr 13 - 08:32 PM (#3504533)
Subject: RE: Songs about Incest
From: MorwenEdhelwen1

Also, a story about incest; Tolkien's Turin Turambar unknowingly sleeps with his sister, Nienor, who has amnesia as the result of a dragon's curse.

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16 Apr 13 - 09:46 PM (#3504557)
Subject: RE: Songs about Incest
From: ollaimh

did anyone mention the well below the valley o.

I have long liked the music but the lyrics make my skin crawl.

I worry about that one. does one sing Andrew lammie? or bonnie sizie clelland? great songs but they are honour killings. so I don't sing incest songs.

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17 Apr 13 - 04:18 AM (#3504645)
Subject: Lyr Add: THE INCEST SONG (Buffy Sainte-Marie)
From: Joe Offer

Buffy Sainte-Marie's "Incest Song" has elements of other ballads, most notably "Sheath & Knife" (Child 16) and "Lizzie Wan (Child 51). Here's my transcription of what I hear on Spotify.

THE INCEST SONG
(Buffy Sainte-Marie)

Word is up to the king's dear daughter
And word is spreading all over the land
That's she's been betrayed by her own dear brother
That he has chosen another fair hand

Many a man had the song of her beauty
And many a grand deed for her had been done
But within her sights she carried the child
Of her father's youngest, fairest son

Tell to me no lies
Tell to me no stories
But saddle my good horse and I'll go and see my own true love
If your words be true ones, then that will mean the end of me

Brother oh brother what lies be these ones
They say your love to another I lose
There's a child within me of thy very own lineage
And I know it's I that thou wouldst choose

And have you yet told your father or mother
All that thou hast told here to me
And he's taken off his good braided sword
That's a-hangin' down beside his knee

No I've not told no one but you my dear one
For it's a secret between us two
And I would come home and quit all my roaming
And spend my days only waiting on you

Too late too late for change my sister
My father has chosen another fair bride
And he stabbed her easy and lovingly lay her
Down in her grave by the green wood side

And when he's come home to his own wedding feasting
And his father asks why he's weeping all so
He says such a bride as I've seen on this morning
Never another man shall know


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_IHdCI3uuU

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17 Apr 13 - 07:35 AM (#3504710)
Subject: RE: Songs about Incest
From: Gutcher

My long held theory as to why girls did not recognise their brothers before being seduced by them as in the "Bonny Hind" etc. relates to the fact that in Scotland up to at least the 17th.C. the eldest sons of some of the clan chiefs were fostered out at an early age, some of them not returning to their own clan until called back to take over as chief on the death of their father.
One such case in the mid 16th. C. was a Maclean from the Western Isles who was packed of as a babe in arms to his mothers people in North East Scotland who ever after on his return as chief of the clan was known in gaelic as the stranger.
Any comments? A previous airing of this theory did not even provoke a whisper from what is surely a large number of learned experts on ballad lore who read these forums.

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17 Apr 13 - 07:48 AM (#3504713)
Subject: RE: Songs about Incest
From: Tootler

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17 Apr 13 - 08:16 AM (#3504723)
Subject: RE: Songs about Incest
From: Jim Carroll

Old Liverpool joke (needs a Scouse accent to be fully appreciated)
If a feller goes to bed with his aunt (pr. ant in Scouse) can he be accused of committing insect?
Jim Carroll

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17 Apr 13 - 08:39 AM (#3504737)
Subject: RE: Songs about Incest
From: Gutcher

Very good Tootler
You have won the coconut.
In this case we will withhold the prize as you appear to be in no need of a second one.

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17 Apr 13 - 10:48 AM (#3504804)
Subject: RE: Songs about Incest
From: GUEST,jonesnudger

Then there was the bloke that didn't know the difference between incest and arson. He set fire to his sister.

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17 Apr 13 - 11:00 AM (#3504817)
Subject: RE: Songs about Incest
From: MGM·Lion

Bit of drift ~~ a memory from earlyish childhood ~ about 8 or 9, set off by Jim above. I found a copy of Freud's Totem & Taboo that my parents had been reading lying about, and read the name of the first chapter as The Savage's Horror Of Insects. I read completely thru that chapter, but came away absolutely mystified as to what it was about insects that the man was saying the savage found so horrible.

~M~

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17 Apr 13 - 06:51 PM (#3505038)
Subject: RE: Songs about Incest
From: GUEST

I like the explanation of why they did not recognize each other in Child #52, King's Daughter Lady Jean:

"The very first time I came from sea
Jane you were unborn
And I wish my gallant ship had sunk
And I'd been left forlorn
And I'd been left forlorn"

"The very next time I came from sea
You were on your nurse's knee
And the very next time I came from sea
You were in this wood with me
You were in this wood with me"

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18 Apr 13 - 07:08 AM (#3505224)
Subject: RE: Songs about Incest
From: Gutcher

The discrepancy in age in the ballad quoted by Guest may not have been as much as one would have imagined when one considers that boys as young as ten were packed of to sea and that girls as young as twelve were considered to be of marriagable age. Indeed a Duchess of Northumberland, in her own right, was wedded and bedded at the age of twelve by a fortune hunter aged 53 in the late 18th.C.,it being noted that this was no runaway marriage.

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18 Apr 13 - 10:23 AM (#3505291)
Subject: RE: Songs about Incest
From: Cool Beans

There was a pop song from the 50s or 60s called "Son, Don't Go Near the Indians," about incest narrowly avoided.

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18 Apr 13 - 01:40 PM (#3505384)
Subject: RE: Songs about Incest
From: Susan of DT

Sorry, that Guest was me, yesterday. I did not notice that I had lost my cookie.

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22 Jun 21 - 05:15 PM (#4111039)
Subject: RE: Songs about Incest
From: Felipa

I just heard The Orphans' Song, which is in the DT. The link is already in the list near the top of the page. It's an Andy M Stewart composition set around the time of WW1 or shortly thereafter

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfoVRrQSYmo = Andy Stewart from a 1982 album. You can also find recordings by other singers, including Niamh Parsons, Celtann, Georgia Lewis etc

I read that the song was based on a true story.

Similar upsets still occur. I recently read a newspaper report about a couple who were dating and who split up after they found out via DNA testing that they were cousins. As far as I am aware, marriage between first cousins is not illegal; and these were second cousins. But they were too "freaked out" by the revelation.

No-one has replied yet to John P's post of 28 Nov 03. Johnny Be Fair is Buffy Sainte-Marie's version of a widespread song also known (and noted in the discussion) as Shame and Scandal.

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