Re: Anti-semitism in folk music???

Richard Desmond & Mike Parker (rich-d@dircon.co.uk)
Wed, 12 Jun 1996 22:46:28 +0100

>Mike wrote about bleeding the child to death. This reminds me of the
>Medieval stories about the Jew who kills the Christian child by sacrificing
>it. In Chaucer, for example, there is a reference to this, the slit throat
>of the choirboy who sings and identifies his killer while also, as I recall,
>praising Christ.
>
>This is definitely NOT an anti-semitic posting--just wondering if the vein
>of anti-semitism which runs so deep in English literature also appears in
>music. There is an Ozark mountain song I have in a collection which also
>refers to this story of the child who sings after being slain by a Jew. My
>child has been reading through the canon of great literature lately, and
>although I was an English major in college and took a degree in
>Medieval/Renaissance lit, I had not previously noticed the many
>anti-semitic references. I've been really struck by how prevalent these,
>and found myself wondering if the poor lambkin were not another example of
>this theme in European culture and if it appears in many ballands and songs?
>Were these among the urban legends of the time?

Joyce

Hi there,

I know of a couple of folk songs that have the theme you mention..."Little
Sir Huw" and "The Jewes Daughter". Both of these date back to at least the
13th C and seem to be misinterperetations of the passover sacrifice. There
always seem to be people who are willing to atribute ghastly behavior to
any social group they don't understand, or just want to victimise (pet
soapbox subject is the 17th C witch trials... some of the accusations those
devout christians dreamt up!!!).

The bleeding aspect in the Lamkin ballads is based on the concept of the
transfer of innocence... the child is 'clean' so by bathing in it's blood,
the cleanliness is transferred. Variations on this belief were still
believed into the present century...reports of men (including Randolf
Churchil) with syphilis paying thousands of pounds to sleep with a virgin
in the belief that it would be transferred and they would be free of it.

Be happy,

Mike.