Songs about Incest

Subject: RE: Songs about INCEST.
From: oldhippie
Date: 05 Jan 09 - 05:48 PM

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".

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

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

Subject: RE: Songs about INCEST.
From: GUEST,Joelle
Date: 22 Jun 09 - 12:18 PM

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)

Subject: RE: Songs about INCEST.
From: Diva
Date: 22 Jun 09 - 05:36 PM

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

Subject: RE: Songs about INCEST.
From: GUEST,Dario Western
Date: 19 Jun 10 - 07:38 PM

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.

Subject: RE: Songs about Incest
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 20 Jun 10 - 06:17 PM

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

Subject: RE: Songs about Incest
From: GUEST,Hilary
Date: 03 Nov 10 - 04:43 PM

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.

Subject: RE: Songs about Incest
From: Bill D
Date: 03 Nov 10 - 05:43 PM

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

Subject: RE: Songs about Incest
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 03 Nov 10 - 06:00 PM

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~

Subject: RE: Songs about Incest
From: Bill D
Date: 03 Nov 10 - 06:35 PM

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

Subject: RE: Songs about Incest
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 03 Nov 10 - 07:52 PM

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

Subject: RE: Songs about Incest
From: Young Buchan
Date: 03 Nov 10 - 08:11 PM

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.

Subject: RE: Songs about Incest
From: Bill D
Date: 03 Nov 10 - 08:25 PM

'Babylon' = "The Cruel Brother"

Very few oral versions call it Babylon..

Subject: RE: Songs about Incest
From: GUEST,susanc
Date: 03 Nov 10 - 08:32 PM

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.

Subject: RE: Songs about Incest
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 04 Nov 10 - 10:09 AM

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

~Michael~

Subject: RE: Songs about Incest
From: GUEST,baz parkes
Date: 04 Nov 10 - 10:44 AM

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

Subject: RE: Songs about Incest
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 04 Nov 10 - 11:38 AM

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~

Subject: RE: Songs about Incest
From: Bill D
Date: 04 Nov 10 - 01:07 PM

**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.....

Subject: RE: Songs about Incest
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 13 Apr 13 - 09:23 AM

A note to what Jack Campin said about Kullervo, Sigmund and Siglinde. I'm doing retellings of both these stories- the Völsunga Saga (which contains Sigmund and Signy's incest with each other, and Signy convincing her brother to kill their first two sons due to the fact that she thinks they're cowards) is the major one. Grishka also gave me advice about retelling shorter folktales first, so I picked Kullervo's story as the short one. Both these stories are my favourites, due to their connection to Tolkien and because they're great stories. Kullervo's story, in particular, has the feel of irreversible tragedy.

Here's what I found on the Kullervo runes from pages 145-148 of Domenico Comparetti's book, The Traditional Poetry of The Finns, which was published in 1898 and is available online on the Archive website.

The earliest Finnish/Karelian songs about Kullervo say nothing about any incest and don't give his name, but only call him Kalevanpoika, son of Kaleva, Kalehva, or Kalervo, who's born after a feud between his father's and uncle's clans. He's blessed/cursed with incredible strength, and tears his swaddling clothes and breaks his cradle when he's three days old. As a child he's sold as a slave to a blacksmith whose cruel, malicious wife gives him scraps to eat while her family and other servants eat good food. She bakes him some bread for lunch while he's herding cows, a task he's given after he ruins every other task he's assigned due to his superhuman strength. He breaks his father's old knife on the stone his mistress baked inside the loaf, and takes his revenge, casting a spell to turn her cows into bears when she comes out to milk them, when they maul her to death. He then runs away, finds his uncle Untamo's clan and kills all of them. There's also two other runes which got combined with that one, which are about a man leaving for war who asks his family if they will cry if he is killed in action, and one where a man is leaving, usually for war, and hears of the deaths of his entire family but is only moved at the death of one (usually his wife). Comparetti calls these poems the Son of Kaleva's Revenge, the Setting Out for the War, and the Death Tidings.


The episode of the young man who commits incest with his sister while on a tax-collecting trip comes from another ballad, "Sisaren turmelus" or "Deflowering of The Sister," where the hero is mostly named Tuiretuinen, Turikkainen or or Tore or Turo. In that ballad, originally the hero doesn't commit suicide, instead repenting by making a sacrifice. But in some parts of 19th-century Karelia, in the Archangel area,there were variants of the song which called the hero Kullervo and usually had the unknown sister get pulled out of a group of girls at a festival. The name "Kullervo" linked the Deflowering Of The Sister with Kaleva's Son's Revenge and the Setting Out For The War, as well as the Death Tidings. Lönnrot used a combination of these runes found in the Archangel area as a basis for Runos 31-36 in the Kalevala.

Traditional Poetry of The Finns by Domenico Comparetti.

Subject: RE: Songs about Incest
From: Richard from Liverpool
Date: 13 Apr 13 - 11:11 AM

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...

Subject: RE: Songs about Incest
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Apr 13 - 11:44 AM

The Maid and the Palmer ?

Subject: RE: Songs about Incest
From: Susan of DT
Date: 13 Apr 13 - 12:12 PM

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

Subject: RE: Songs about Incest
From: Gutcher
Date: 14 Apr 13 - 05:48 AM

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.

Subject: RE: Songs about Incest
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 16 Apr 13 - 08:32 PM

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.

Subject: RE: Songs about Incest
From: ollaimh
Date: 16 Apr 13 - 09:46 PM

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.

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

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

Subject: RE: Songs about Incest
From: Gutcher
Date: 17 Apr 13 - 07:35 AM

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.

Subject: RE: Songs about Incest
From: Tootler
Date: 17 Apr 13 - 07:48 AM

Subject: RE: Songs about Incest
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 17 Apr 13 - 08:16 AM

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

Subject: RE: Songs about Incest
From: Gutcher
Date: 17 Apr 13 - 08:39 AM

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.

Subject: RE: Songs about Incest
From: GUEST,jonesnudger
Date: 17 Apr 13 - 10:48 AM

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

Subject: RE: Songs about Incest
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 17 Apr 13 - 11:00 AM

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~

Subject: RE: Songs about Incest
From: GUEST
Date: 17 Apr 13 - 06:51 PM

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"

Subject: RE: Songs about Incest
From: Gutcher
Date: 18 Apr 13 - 07:08 AM

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.

Subject: RE: Songs about Incest
From: Cool Beans
Date: 18 Apr 13 - 10:23 AM

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

Subject: RE: Songs about Incest
From: Susan of DT
Date: 18 Apr 13 - 01:40 PM

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

Subject: RE: Songs about Incest
From: Felipa
Date: 22 Jun 21 - 05:15 PM

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.