Teleri's Songs for the Ladies

A collection of songs with strong female presence.

Only songs that I'm sure are in the public domain will be written in their entirety. Otherwise, I'll provide a synopsis of the song and information on how you can contact its creator to purchase a songbook, CD, or whatever.

Whenever possible, I've provided links to audio files of the songs. My two main sources are The Cantaria and The Digital Tradition Folk Song Database. As time allows, I'll see about looking up different sources for you to compare tunes.

One final caveat: If I've webbed a song from my personal repetoire (and most of these are), it's been oral transmitized. That means, although I probably learned it from a printed source, it's been fermenting in my head and I've written down the version that lives up there now. The changes are usually minor...if you're interested, I've written a paper on ballad drift in which I analyzed the drift of ballads in my own collection. I'll get it online as soon as I can get to the file

Fun and Sexy

The Better Thief
A young woman tricks a young man into giving her "what's between his thighs."

The Chandler's Wife
About an insatiable wife. Exorts husbands to satify their wives. It certainly could be taken as misogynistic, but I prefer to think of it as a celebration of woman's sexuality.

Three Drunken Maidens
Four rollicking gal pals drink and carouse.

Advice to the Ladies by Morgan Wolfsinger
Dealing with less than desirable masculine character traits.

Pump Away
A darling counting to ten song that can be sung in a male or female voice.

Oyster Girl
Clever 'oyster girl' pulls a fast one on a customer.

Red-Haired Mary
The misadventures of a gentleman who tries to take up with a spirited young woman.

Lusty Young Smith
Sort of a Mrs. Robinson situation, like Mattie Groves, but without all the killing.

Johnny Be Fair
Equal-opportunity philandering.

Two Maids Went A-Milking
Story of an apparent threesome set to a deceptively innocent tune.

Maids When You're Young
I don't know the song personally, but a read-over of the lyrics tells me that it belongs here.

Oh, No John
A great song about a woman who's cleverer than she appears to be in wooing.

Jenny's Song
Still in the works. An original filk to "Whiskey in the Jar." Why would Jenny have turned her highwayman lover in, anyway?

Child Ballads

The Outlandish Knight
A version of the Child ballad "Lady Isabel and the Elf-Knight." Like so many other ballads, the heroine is duped by a seducer. In this one, however, she doesn't end up disgraced, pregnant, or dead.

The Old Farmer and the Devil
Really more about the farmer's wife. My folksong teacher thought it was, again, misogynistic. I see it as the power of a hard-living woman "not fit for heaven and too mean for hell."

Get Up and Bar the Door
Another Child ballad. Both man and wife participate in a childish contest of wills. She wins.

Mary Hamilton
OK, she's seduced, gets pregnant, kills the child and is executed. But she places the blame squarely on the shoulders of her seducer - the king - before she goes. An indictment of the double standard.

Jock O'Hazeldean
AKA Jack of Hazelgreen. Our heroine manages to evade an unwanted marriage and get her man and nobody dies! This is an "active" version where the maiden is the one to run off with Jock, rather than a "passive" version where she's rescued by him.

Chick Picks

Wild Mountain Thyme
This was my banner song while on the rebound from a relationship.

Beggars to God performed by Double Trouble
A lovely parable about love and life and joy with a gypsy theme.

If I Was a Blackbird
I've heard two versions of this song, one for a female voice and one for a male voice. It's about a lover left behind, wish s/he could fly like a blackbird and follow his or her lover. So, ladies, sing it from the male voice! We've finally got a man pining away for us for a change.

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