Ok, something is forming, bear with me, it's early in the game, but....
Renwick suggests that the kind of explicit moralising that makes its way
into later ballad texts comes from a society which expects the need for
a kind of Basil Bernstein elaborated code; in a non face-to-face society,
you can't expect everyone to understand what you're on about--you have to
tell them. The folktale literature on Bluebeard, Fitcher's Bird, Mr.
Fox, et al, also suggests that the morals on those stories are _literary_
add ons, usually from the collector (and usually the moral there is that
women should not be curious--a moral that is in some ways nonsensical,
because after all it would be a good idea to know that your husband was a
mass murderer, no?).
So, I'm kind of wondering if the "shun bad company" thing isn't also a
bit, er, specious? I take Don Duncan's point that the actual moral if any
may, no, WILL depend very much on the historic context, but there are a
lot of historic contexts, from British broadside versions to at least two
from Nova Scotia, not to mention the North American revival....
Again, I'm not a ballad person really. I'd appreciate very much your
suggestions.
Pauline
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