The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #164332 Message #3932633
Posted By: Richard Mellish
22-Jun-18 - 10:33 AM
Thread Name: Origins: Child Ballads in Ireland
Subject: RE: Origins: Child Ballads in Ireland
Richie mentioned > … skin color is immediately established as the murder motive.
It could be skin colour, but hair colour seems more likely. Fair skin was certainly valued at one time, but the contrast is generally reckoned to have been between rich people who spent most of their time indoors and poor people who spent a lot of time working outdoors and so got suntanned. Two sisters would probably have had very similar lifestyles, so their skin colours would have been much the same.