We are finally getting to one of the ballad types and topics that made me realize how much potential lay in these old songs…. Monstrous births. Or, to be clear, that's how they were marketed at the time. They were actually an overall mix of true accounts of birth defects and used the idea of deformity as a direct metaphor. Either which way it went, one thing remained the same. The mother was almost always to blame in some way or another.

Prides's Fall
The two inseparable brothers.

Infant Mortality Rates
The Jersey Devil
Colloredo Twins
 Succession to the Crown Act 
Freaks
NIH: Pregnancy test timeline
The Encyclopedia of Superstitions by Richard Webster
The Odd Superstition Behind Birthmarks
Medieval disability glossary. 

Welcome everyone to Episode 19 Where we are looking at all the ways to woo those wonderful and witty wenches… or the ones who value knowledge over marriage, the one’s that fit the Athena archetype.

Show transcript and blog
A mad kinde of wooing
Hares on the Mountain
The Blue Stocking Society
The Enlightenment

Today we look at both the history and one of the earliest versions of the Robin Hood legend, which spread and gained popularity largely through the ballad traditions. While we do we will look at how he fits in with that classic trickster archetype, and how the social and economic factors of the 1300's led to fertile ground for the growth of his story.
Robin Hode and the Munke / Robin Hood and the Monk
Timeline Documentary
The Medieval Warm Period
The Great Famine
Black Death
  100 Years War
Peasant’s Revolt