Matty Groves - who's the 'baddy'?

Subject: RE: Matty Groves - who's the 'baddy'?
From: GUEST,McGrath of Harlow
Date: 30 Mar 05 - 04:34 PM

The idea that there is one baddy, and that everyone else is blameless, in a story like that is a strange one. As it is in any number of real life family disasters.

Subject: RE: Matty Groves - who's the 'baddy'?
From: GUEST,Barrie Roberts
Date: 30 Mar 05 - 04:31 PM

The religious class that required a topic embracing 'sin, love or justice' reminds me of an old story about the famous mystery-writer who addressed a class of schoolkids, impressing upon them that a really good mystery story contained three things --- religion, sex and mystery.
He then set a competition for the class to write a short mystery story. One kid won it in three minutes with 'My God! I'm pregnant! Who did it?'

Subject: RE: Matty Groves - who's the 'baddy'?
From: Amos
Date: 30 Mar 05 - 09:55 AM

This is the kind of stuff that makes the Mudcat great in even the worst of its times. Thanks for an eminently readable discussion, gang!

My first impulse was to say it was the wicked wife as seductress, but the complex of individual decisions made in context is not conducive to condemning one person as the baddy. Because real life often doesn't fall in to black and white roles. It is true that any of the players could have chosen more wisely and thus prevented the convergent of bad choices into a catastrophe. The song engenders a wish -- maybe even a decision -- to seek wiser powers of choice. But is not a moralityplay in the old black-and-white sense.

A

Subject: RE: Matty Groves - who's the 'baddy'?
From: GUEST
Date: 30 Mar 05 - 03:14 AM

My daughter, sophomore in a Catholic girls high school, needs a song for Religion class that contains "sin, love or justice". I thought for a bit and gave her Matty Groves, Fairport Convention version. That may give the class someting to discuss. The younger kids will probably go to publick school.

Allan

Subject: RE: Matty Groves - who's the 'baddy'?
From: Pied Piper
Date: 14 Jan 04 - 08:17 AM

The woman.

Subject: RE: Matty Groves - who's the 'baddy'?
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 13 Jan 04 - 11:50 AM

One of the salient features of the traditional English and Scottish ballads is that they don't take sides, they don't preach. They give you a conflict situation, which gets resolved in some way, but the song itself doesn't set out to tell you what to think about the situation. Sure, you may conclude that you pity Matty Grove (for instance) in the situation, but the ballad won't tell you, "Oh, wow, that bastard husband slew poor little Matty!" Nor, "There! That sneaking womanizer, Matty Grove, got his comeuppance!"

The "baddy" (if any) is the personal creation of the individual listener.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Matty Groves - who's the 'baddy'?
From: Ivan
Date: 13 Jan 04 - 11:28 AM

There are no "baddies" in the song, just people who have to make choices.
Matty/Musgrave has to choose whether or not to try his luck with the lady.
She has to choose whether or not to invite him back to her place.
The page has to choose ... and so on.
Thankfully they all make what turn out to be the wrong choices. If they didn't it would be an extremely boring song! In fact it would have been forgotten long before now.

Subject: RE: Matty Groves - who's the 'baddy'?
From: Snuffy
Date: 13 Jan 04 - 09:04 AM

Refresh

Subject: RE: Matty Groves - who's the 'baddy'?
From: Nerd
Date: 20 Aug 03 - 02:20 AM

Joe F

Good point that these things vary from version to version as well! Of course, there are many versions not in Child, and indeed the ones I know best are from oral tradition. The Child versions you've gone through add even more interesting twists!

Subject: RE: Matty Groves - who's the 'baddy'?
From: Joe_F
Date: 19 Aug 03 - 07:42 PM

Nerd:

Evidently, you know more about the matter than I do. At any rate, I think I should have written "gallantry" rather than "chivalry". There certainly was (and is? I have heard such things said) a body of sentiment that it is craven for a man to turn down a woman's offer, regardless of the sin & danger involved, but perhaps "gallantry" is a better name for it.

I had assumed that the page was the lord's rather than the lady's; but I see in Child that the versions differ on this point. In A he is indeed the lady's, and expresses awareness of the resulting conflict:

All though I am my ladye's foot-page,
Yet I am Lord Barnard's man.

In C, she calls him "_our_ little foot-page", but it is clear that his primary duty & loyalty are to the lord. She worries that the page will betray her, and Musgrave responds by offering him a bribe to keep the secret & indeed stand watch in case the lord comes home; but he refuses, saying "'Twere great disloyaltie", and runs off. That surely magnifies the recklessness of the couple in proceeding! H is similar.

In D, there is no mention of whose in particular the page is; but he *asks* for a bribe, and Musgrave, besides agreeing to pay it, threatens to burn the page alive if he betrays them; the page then sneaks off to the stable & rides away to warn the lord. Complicated things must have been going on in his mind! Perhaps he resented being threatened. L is similar, except that the page is explicitly the lady's, and Musgrave asks her to bribe him.

In E, the page is unambiguously "Lord Barnaby's boy", and he surprises them in the act. *The lady* threatens him with a penknife; he gives her "a blythe leer look" & runs off. J is similar, except that she threatens him with a rusty sword.

In F, the page is hers, and she summons him in advance for the promise & the threat, but he ignores both.

Evidently there are some versions in which the page is only doing his duty, but they are not the most interesting ones. Complexities of morality indeed!

Subject: RE: Matty Groves - who's the 'baddy'?
From: Nerd
Date: 19 Aug 03 - 12:16 PM

Sorry, Joe F, but I can't agree.

It was not part of the Laws of Chivalry that a married woman who is "love-struck" should attempt to sleep with the object of her affections. (Women, by the way, were not goverened by rules of chivalry anyway.) It was even less part of any chivalric code for a man to sleep with an inappropriate woman. Chivalric or courtly love was ideally non-sexual, with the man worshipping the woman and performing great feats in her honor. Entire romances, such as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, are centered on the idea that the height of chivalry is refusing sexual contact with women if that contact is not socially appropriate (eg. you are not married to her, or worse, she is your lord's wife). In fact, Matty's inability to refuse her advances would be seen as emotional and womanly, "abandoning his manhood" in your words.

The page was also not bound by chivalric rules, and it is open to interpretation whether he did the right thing. He is, after all, a lady's page, that is, her servant, and he obviously goes against her wishes. On the other hand, in the medieval/renaissance worldview, Barnard is her boss, and hence the page's "boss's boss." So the situation is similar to being in an office where your boss does something which you know HER boss would not approve of. Do you tell? Hard to say, but few would argue that it's necessarily your JOB to tell.

Insofar as Barnard/Arlen goes, once he is informed by the page, he has more options than simply killing them on the spot. Depending on where his demesne is, he may be essentially an absolute tyrant on his own lands. Or he may be able to prosecute them legally. he certainly does not have to kill them, as he himself recognizes in some versions of the ballad where he regrets his actions afterward.

The good thing about the ballad for me is that it presents complexities of morality rarely seen in ballads. You can ask: was Lady Barnard wrong to pursue Matty, if she was in a loveless marriage? Was Matty wrong to accept her offer, if he could see how unhappy she was? Was the page wrong to tell, given what the likely consequences would be? Was Barnard wrong to kill them? In all cases, the answer is "yes...and no." That's why it's one of the great ones!

Subject: RE: Matty Groves - who's the 'baddy'?
From: Joe_F
Date: 18 Aug 03 - 07:26 PM

All of the characters in this ballad were playing their roles according to the laws of chivalry. Lady Barnard/Arlen was lovestruck. Little Musgrave/Matty Groves would have been abandoning his manhood if he had refused the lady's offer. The page was doing his job. Lord Barnard/Arlen was defending his honor.

Of course, from most people's point of view these days, each of them was asking for trouble. Leslie Fish disposes of the three main characters in the last line of her satire:

"But who else but a brainless slut would go for Manly Men?"

She has nothing to say about the page.

Subject: RE: Matty Groves - who's the 'baddy'?
From: GUEST,Nerd-away from home
Date: 18 Aug 03 - 11:45 AM

Re: jacob B's observation (three years ago!)

Yes, several great traditional singers in North Carolina and Virginia identified the page as "little Robert Ford." Cas Wallin paused after singing the character's name and muttered "he got around, didn't he?" indicating that he was fully aware of the character's appearance in Jesse James. Dillard Chandler also sang of "little Robert Ford." I think he was Cas' Uncle, but he may have been a cousin.

Subject: RE: Matty Groves - who's the 'baddy'?
From: GUEST
Date: 18 Aug 03 - 11:42 AM

Subject: RE: Matty Groves - who's the 'baddy'?
From: GUEST
Date: 18 Aug 03 - 07:25 AM

REFRESH

Subject: RE: Matty Groves - who's the 'baddy'?
From: Hedy West (current membership)
Date: 09 Sep 00 - 05:40 AM

They're all flawed, just like us. In condensed time we watch them pay for those flaws. If we've a mind to, we can try to contain ours, or leap right into our own perditions. Hedy

Subject: RE: Matty Groves - who's the 'baddy'?
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 09 Sep 00 - 05:39 AM

Ethel Winifred??! At least Euphemia got popular with Mrs Doubtfire..... Ethel is a sad old character in a UK soap (sorry, thrice weekly drama) who died in the latest episode. Winifred at least has the merit of being a saint.

LTS

Subject: RE: Matty Groves - who's the 'baddy'?
From: Metchosin
Date: 09 Sep 00 - 05:35 AM

Could be worse Liz, if they'd named me for my grandmother rather than my greatgrandmother I would have been Euphemia rather than Susan.

Subject: RE: Matty Groves - who's the 'baddy'?
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 09 Sep 00 - 05:25 AM

As for having the time to study...that's what life is, I suppose. We all graduate eventually, with a diploma in Life. Yeah - but the graduation party is a bummer, and the diploma a death certificate!! *B sardonic G*..

Re: thread creep on names - my daughter is called Phoebe after my great grandmother - everyone just assumes I named her for the one in 'Friends' - except the rampant Christians - they know my feminist views on women in the priesthood and assume I named her after the first deaconess mentioned in Acts..... You can't win!!

LTS who was named for her grandmother, and is extremely lucky they didn't chose the other grandmother or else I could be Winifred!!

Subject: RE: Matty Groves - who's the 'baddy'?
From: Catrin
Date: 09 Sep 00 - 05:08 AM

There's a woman who presents gardening programmes in the UK called 'Gay Search' (really!)

A friend of mine is called 'Matty' - short for Matthew. Don't know anyone who has Matty on their birth certificate though.

Oh and back to Matty Groves - This thread is wonderful! I feel like I gave birth to an idea and then watched it grow up, stand up and walk away, all independent like and with its own ideas.

Fascinating!

Subject: RE: Matty Groves - who's the 'baddy'?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 08 Sep 00 - 09:12 PM

Yup. It's been blown out of the water by Courtney, Megan, Erin, Brooke, Britney, Kyla, and so on...just wait and see what happens next...

I wonder when Beulah and Kezia will come back into style? Maybe never?

For that matter, what about Winston and Throckmorton? Two perfectly good names that have been swept away by the cruel tides of social conformity. And then there's Oglethorpe and Ignatz and Cholmondely (pronounced "Chumley")...

There are so many boys named Kyle in this town, that if you yell it out on a large cruise ship you have to be sure you're standing in the middle of the boat or the darn thing capsizes when they all come running! It's a sick and horrifying example of the insidious effects of TV on a numb populace.

Is this thread creep? Damned if I know. I can't remember what started me on this anymore.

Oh yeah, Matty Groves. There aren't too many Matty's around any more either. Shocking. Something should be done!

By the way, there is a woman in Orillia named Gay Guthrie (and she isn't). She administers a local art gallery. True fact. For false facts, consult the SPAW Centre For Disinformation and Rumorous Twaddle.

Subject: RE: Matty Groves - who's the 'baddy'?
From: Naemanson
Date: 08 Sep 00 - 11:20 AM

I think Guest JTT was being deliberately funny.

Thread Creep!

I used to be gay until they changed its definition. Then I got depressed until I decided I could be gay and straight at the same time! Unfortunately I can't be too pointed about being gay in a conservative society so I have to just to tell people I'm happy until the day comes when I can be gay again.

It just occurred to me, are people using the name "Gay" for their little girls any more? Has that name now dropped out of sight?

Subject: RE: Matty Groves - who's the 'baddy'?
From: harpgirl
Date: 08 Sep 00 - 08:30 AM

...Lord Donald's wife is one halyard short on her storm jib. If she had any sense she wouldn't have gotten caught in the first place. Before technology eliminated evolution, we needed female promiscuity to keep the gene pool clear. Now we are doomed unless we find some cute beta aliens!!!! harpgirl

Subject: RE: Matty Groves - who's the 'baddy'?
From: 5-string
Date: 08 Sep 00 - 12:53 AM

You know, all the modern-day theorizing is great, but did anybody live in those days who can give us an insight to the actual mindset of the day?

The version I know says nothing of Lady Arlen passing on to her reward. Also, there is a Child's number to this, but I don't know it offhand.

Subject: RE: Matty Groves - who's the 'baddy'?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 07 Sep 00 - 10:51 PM

JTT - before our silly society decided to get all embroiled in new names for various groups of people for whatever reason..."gay" was an extremely useful word. It meant: happy, blithe, carefree...and so on. A Lady Gay was generally thought to be an attractive lady, basically, or a lady who knew how to enjoy herself, or something like that.

Now, however, "gay" is a word with a much more specific application. That's a pretty recent development, historically speaking.

No offense to gays intended by my comments, by the way.

Subject: RE: Matty Groves - who's the 'baddy'?
From: Art Thieme
Date: 07 Sep 00 - 10:40 PM

I participated in a workshop a while ago called "HEROES, VILLIANS AND VICTIMS". Jim Ringer was on it too. Can't recall who else. We realized pretty quickly that many of our songs that we had chosen to pull out for this had people in them that could fit into all three.

"Jesse James"

"Pretty Boy Floyd"

"Billy The Kid"

"Tom Joad"

"Blackjack County Chain"---------and many others.

Yep, this one too.

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: Matty Groves - who's the 'baddy'?
From: GUEST,JTT
Date: 07 Sep 00 - 03:59 PM

Lord Donald is the baddy. He's the only one who kills people. Never mind about everyone's motivation, when it comes down to it, he's the murderer.

And I don't care if he's a man of high temper and it's a crime of passion, he's still a contemptible murderer, the creepo, and I'm glad his lady gay (was she a lesbian, I wonder?) and her little sweetie had a good time in his feather bed and his sheets.

Subject: RE: Matty Groves - who's the 'baddy'?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 06 Sep 00 - 04:50 PM

Mumblethroth Dinglewort is a superb name. It's as good as Crawford Tillinghast, IMHO. If I ever acquire 2 more hamsters (or guinea pigs), I am going to name them Mumblethroth and Dinglewort.

Subject: RE: Matty Groves - who's the 'baddy'?
From: sophocleese
Date: 06 Sep 00 - 04:23 PM

balladeer, yes I made up the name Mumblethroth Dinglewort. I'm glad you liked it and found what I wrote funny. I should probably have taken more time and rendered it in verse form but that's the way it came out.

Subject: RE: Matty Groves - who's the 'baddy'?
From: balladeer
Date: 06 Sep 00 - 06:48 AM

A grave, a grave, Lord Arland cried. To put these two lovers in. But place my lady on the upper hand For she came of better kin.

Thanks Hesperis. Even though I'm easily wounded, I am happy to be part of a ballad-related discussion where people are involved enough to be heated.

Subject: RE: Matty Groves - who's the 'baddy'?
From: hesperis
Date: 05 Sep 00 - 11:27 PM

Maybe it won't ever be possible to create that kind of society, but we can try. Looks like you're trying to do that as well.
Sorry I accused you of a lack of compassion. (Didn't realize I'd gotten so heated!)

Subject: RE: Matty Groves - who's the 'baddy'?
From: balladeer
Date: 05 Sep 00 - 11:20 PM

Sophoclees: Did you make up the name Mumblethroth Dinglewort? I'm still laughing....

Subject: RE: Matty Groves - who's the 'baddy'?
From: balladeer
Date: 05 Sep 00 - 11:15 PM

Sophoclees -- I love your marriage-counselling post. My jokes are rarely understood on the net, and now I see I have made the same mistake in missing your irony (sarcasm?)

Hesperis -- I mostly agreed with your last entry, but a) I don't believe it will ever be possible to create a society in which EVERYONE consciously recognizes they have choices and usually makes the socially responsible ones and b) I have no idea why you accuse me of lacking compassion. I just don't subscribe to the notion that "society" and "I" are disconnected units.

Subject: RE: Matty Groves - who's the 'baddy'?
From: Brendy
Date: 05 Sep 00 - 11:15 PM

The page may not have been as magnanimous as we all think.

He was bound to know that information like this would be highly rewarded by his Lord. OK, he may have been 'loyal' to the two of them, the Lord was in a position to hand out a few acres of land, where herself wasn't.

He also assumed that if his information was incorrect he would be killed himself, for defaming his wife, but, perhaps he reckoned that that Matty would still be in the sack with his wife the next morning. Versions differ as to how far away the Lord was on this particular day.

Matty was an eegit for staying the night in the first place, morality questions aside.
The page, lowlife informer that he was, made substantial financial gain out of the whole affair.

He probably wrote the song as well. Matty certainly didn't. Neither did the Lady. And I doubt the Lord would have been in possession of sufficient facts about the matter to write such a detailed account about events that happened when he wasn't there to witness, them.
Wouldn't really be in his best interests to write such a song, would it?

No my money is on a big white wash job by the page.

It's so hard to find decent help these days.

B.

Subject: RE: Matty Groves - who's the 'baddy'?
From: Naemanson
Date: 05 Sep 00 - 10:51 PM

Actually to paraphrase Pogo:

Don't take life so seriously, nobody survives the experience.

Subject: RE: Matty Groves - who's the 'baddy'?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 05 Sep 00 - 10:15 PM

You are doing the examining, Soph...if it's your life. Me if it's mine.

Naemanson - As for having the time to study...that's what life is, I suppose. We all graduate eventually, with a diploma in Life.

To quote Walt Whitman:

"All goes onward and outward...and nothing collapses, And to die is different from what anyone supposed, and luckier. Has anyone supposed it is lucky to be born? I hasten to inform him or her it is just as lucky to die, and I know it."

Whitman didn't just talk...he listened.

Subject: RE: Matty Groves - who's the 'baddy'?
From: hesperis
Date: 05 Sep 00 - 10:03 PM

balladeer - Society is pretty big... If people don't know that they have a choice, who is going to clean up the results of their actions? The rest of us. Society.

When individual choices make a society that has such momentum as to prevent certain other individuals from acting in a healthy, sane way, then that is society's fault. You can't find the individuals in any large society who made that society become a reality. And then people are hampered in their choices by what that society says is their choice.

To say that society is to blame is not a way of avoiding individual responsibility.

To say that society is to blame means that we each have the responsibility to affect that society in a sane way.
We each need, through our own actions and decisions, to build a sane society. What I mean by a sane society, is an environment where all people realize they have those moments of choice, and to give them the tools needed to choose well, each according to reality, logic, heart, and their own consciences.

We currently live in a society that is not exactly sane. It was much worse back then.
How much insanity can a normal person take before they go insane?
And if they are overexposed to insanity through no fault of their own, how can you blame them for becoming insane?

Yes, we all still need to clean up the mess, but have some compassion here!

~*hesperis*~

Subject: RE: Matty Groves - who's the 'baddy'?
From: GUEST
Date: 05 Sep 00 - 09:28 PM

I keep readin' and readin' (all good stuff) but I keep waitin' for Spaw to post sumpin bout "turing a page." Where air ye, Spaw???

Subject: RE: Matty Groves - who's the 'baddy'?
From: Naemanson
Date: 05 Sep 00 - 04:51 PM

If I have to pass an examination of my own life then I want time to study for the test!

Subject: RE: Matty Groves - who's the 'baddy'?
From: sophocleese
Date: 05 Sep 00 - 04:39 PM

Well first of all it depends on who is doing the examining....

Subject: RE: Matty Groves - who's the 'baddy'?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 05 Sep 00 - 03:00 PM

Hey, sophocleese, "the unexamined life is not worth living", right? The examined life requires that a person challenge and question all the social, religious, scientific, and ethical conditioning that has been laid upon her by her parents, the schools, the churches, the governmental authorities, and so on. First you challenge and question the "common sense" of your day. Then you formulate hypothetical theories of your own. Then you put those theories to the test in the crucible of actual experience. And then, you are in a position to become a free human being. Unexamined lives do become victims of society, by default, as it were. And it really is their fault, because they could have done some examining, but chose not to.

Oh, yeah...watch out for that "tongue-in-cheek" stuff. Ya do it too much and ya start to look like a chipmunk! :-)

Naemanson - Great point! The song "Matty Groves" has served to enlighten and change society, as have many other songs. And that has got to be the highest calling a folksong or any work of art can possibly have.

Subject: RE: Matty Groves - who's the 'baddy'?
From: Catrin
Date: 05 Sep 00 - 10:39 AM

Toady's society?????

I think I meant today's, although perhaps it was an unconsciously expressed opinion (*BG*)

Catrin

Subject: RE: Matty Groves - who's the 'baddy'?
From: Catrin
Date: 05 Sep 00 - 10:36 AM

Fascinating!!!

This discussion is reminding me why I love folk music so much. The best folk songs touch on issues that affect all of us, by virtue of our being human. I think that this ballad does allow for different interpretations, hence people's ideas of who is the 'baddy' differ depending upon their own moral standpoint. So it turns fairly quickly into, not a dicussion of the song any more, but rather a philosophical discussion of morals and values infherent in toady's society

I would really like to go back to a question that somebody raised earlier - Is this based on a 'true' event? Anybody know?

Subject: RE: Matty Groves - who's the 'baddy'?
From: sophocleese
Date: 05 Sep 00 - 10:34 AM

Just for the record, comments I made about them being helpless victims were strictly tongue in cheek. "Oh dear, oh dear, well I think that an appointment with Mumblethroth Dinglewort ye olde marriage counsellor would be a good idea however, as I'm a helpless victim of society, instead I am driven by forces beyond my strength to offer you, Matty, a sword so that we can trying killing each other in a duel. Would you like the pretty blue one or the Zolton Mega-Thresher?"

Subject: RE: Matty Groves - who's the 'baddy'?
From: Naemanson
Date: 05 Sep 00 - 10:25 AM

Thnks Noreen and DanMulligan. I THOUGHT I'd heard it as the page being female. I haven't had time to listen again yet.

One thing we need to keep firmly in mind is that the incidents depicted in the song have a role in changing the society. People are affected by the song and it impacts their perception of the society around them. And slowly, over the centuries, things are changed. A lot of Matties and Lady Donalds have had to die in the interim but it is now illegal to kill an adulterous couple no matter who you are.

Little Hawk - You commented on Horatio Hornblower. Have you read O'Brian yet? Are you familiar with Aubrey and Maturin?

Subject: RE: Matty Groves - who's the 'baddy'?
From: balladeer
Date: 05 Sep 00 - 09:22 AM

Yes. I'm having real difficulty with the "society made them do it" argument. Society is us. We created it to keep us organized. And, of course, we can objectify and, therefore, blame our creation when that suits us.

Subject: RE: Matty Groves - who's the 'baddy'?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 04 Sep 00 - 02:08 PM

Right. I have noticed ever since my stay at Rolling Thunder's camp that people in regular society are absolutely surrounded by a multitude of possible choices...and yet they are utterly unaware of it most of the time.

So they go out to the bars at night, or sit glued to the TV...because they honestly cannot think of one other thing they could do at that moment. There's even a TV in the f*cking bar. Big Brother is watching.

It's pathetic.

What can you expect, though, when people are fed a diet of mental garbage from the time they're old enough to walk?

The overall society is to blame. It has brutalized people and robbed them of the awareness of their own freedom of choice. And if that is so, then the individual people are to blame too...because we all collectively make this society what it is.

So...let's change it. Now. By changing ourselves, one at a time. We have the power.

Subject: RE: Matty Groves - who's the 'baddy'?
From: hesperis
Date: 04 Sep 00 - 12:53 PM

No, sophocleese, we are never helpless. There is always a moment of choice. (Otherwise I would probably be dead by now.)

The horrible thing is that so many do not realize this, and so many do not take the time to think for themselves, and so many end up just repeating unhealthy patterns of behaviour.

Children do not really have a choice, but that is partly because we do not teach them how to think. And when they think on their own, it is often beaten out of them.
Then when they are older, they are expected to be "productive" members of society, whatever that means.

Most of the people in this ballad were adults. They each had a choice.

Society bears the greatest share of blame in this (IMHO) because many people do not get out of destructive patterns. Many people do not know that there is a choice, and therefore choose according to what society says is right, rather than thinking it out, deciding, and then acting with confidence on that decision.

If people do not know there is a choice, then society is responsible, for their actions, and for cleaning up the consequences. (IMHO)

By the standards of society at that time, Lady Arlen (or whoever) was the most to blame. (And the page was the least to blame.) And this I do not accept.

Subject: RE: Matty Groves - who's the 'baddy'?
From: Catrin
Date: 04 Sep 00 - 12:16 PM

Wow - just got back - stopping this falling off the bottom of the page(?)

Rushing out - catch you later.

Catrin

Subject: RE: Matty Groves - who's the 'baddy'?
From: Noreen
Date: 03 Sep 00 - 12:55 PM

Naemanson and DanMulligan, you're both right- for some reason Simon Nicol has taken to singing of the page as female. I took it be so it sounds more 'exciting' or something when she 'bared her breast and she ran' but who knows? Simon is famous for his grasp (or otherwise)of lyrics.
It wasn't him though who left a whole verse out at Cropredy one year, unfortunately the pivotal verse where Matty snuffs it!

The idea of commenting on the soft furnishings seems to have come from 'Fatty Groves', the Kipper Family's parody of Matty. (DT not accessible at the moment so can't check if this link works, sorry).

Noreen