Leenia on April 12 notes that "in the olden days, attitudes toward infanticide were very lax compared to modern attitudes" and Ebarnacle notes on the same day that infanticide was, in the time of Peter the Great "a common practice". Does anyone know of any references for these statements? Seems to me that, if infanticide were common and attitudes toward it were lax, then the point of the song becomes "What a shame that Mary was executed for a minor thing like killing her baby." Somehow I find that doubtful, but I admit that I am not an expert on the history of Renaissance Scotland or early modern Russia.