I'm coming in late on this strand and am not sure if its been mentioned, but
Dianne Dugaw wrote an entire book on the subject of cross-dressing warrior
women in _Warrior Women and Popular Balladry_, reprinted in paperback recently
by the University of Chicago Press.
Sorry if it's already been mentioned.
Roxanne Kent-Drury
>===== Original Message From [log in to unmask] =====
>Shane Dunphy wrote:
>>
>> Hi all,
>> There has been much discourse about lesbianism in ballads, and I think
>> that we must admit: it's few and far between. The closest thing that I
>> am aware of is in The Curragh of Kildare, where the young woman
>> dresses as a soldier to see her husband, although this kind of
>> cross-dressing hardly falls under the category of lesbianism (surely
>> the woman in this case is driven by purely hetero-sexual motives!)
>> However, if one widens the net a bit, one can find one or two examples
>> of sexual deviancy in ballads. The Well Below the Valley is about
>> incest, while Yarmouth Town features group sex. The Zoological Gardens
>> also contains a verse where the prostitute threatens to have sex with
>> the "Hairy Baboon" if her consort does not act more enthusiastically
>> and complete the task at hand.
>> That's all for now,
>> Shane.
>
>(ZNn is the quick find reference number in the broadside ballad
>index on my website)
>"The Famous Woman Drummer", (ZN2076) and "The Gallant She-
>Souldier" (ZN3084) are both about a real event, the birth of a
>son to the woman drummer, Mrs. John Clarke, on July 16, 1655 in a London
>inn. Laurence Price's ballad, ZN2076, is very scant on hard facts,
>however.
>
>Searching though the broadside ballad index on 'female' and
>'woman' will turn up several other ballads on women in what are
>traditionally men's roles; The Female Doctor, The Female Captain,
>The Female Warrior, The Female Souldier, The Woman Warrior.
>Among women fighters there's also Mary Ambree, but none on Joan
>of Arc that I know of.
>
>I'm sure that a similar search through Steve Roud's folksong and
>broadside indexes would turn up more of this type of ballad.
>
>Bruce Olson
>
>My website: www.erols.com/olsonw <A
>href="http://www.erols.com/olsonw"> Click </a>
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