The Cruel Mother

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The Cruel Mother (Roud 9, Child 20) is a murder ballad.

[edit] Synopsis

A woman gives birth to one or two illegitimate children (usually sons) in the woods, kills them, and buries them. She, going home, sees a child, or children, playing, and says that if they were hers, she would dress them in various fine garments and otherwise take care of them. The children tell her that when they were hers, she did not dress them so but murdered them. Frequently they say she will be damned for it.

Some variant open with the account that she has fallen in love with her father's clerk.

[edit] See also

• The Maid and the Palmer
• Joan - a Joan Baez album that includes "The Greenwood Side", a variant of "The Cruel Mother"

[edit] External links

• Several variants
• The Cruel Mother
• The Cruel Mother with historical commentary
• Fine Flowers in the Valley variant
• An MP3 recording of The Cruel Mother by Kentucky ballad singer Daniel Dutton