Canadian Folk Music Archives

http://cfmb.icaap.org/content/1984/18.3/index.html

The Poems of Bonnie Parker

Source.

Banjo Patterson Poetry

• A Bush Christening
• Clancy of the Overflow
• A Dream of the Melbourne Cup
• El Mahdi to the Australian Troops
• The Geebung Polo Club
• How the Favourite Beat Us
• The Man From Ironbark
• The Man From Snowy River
• Mulga Bill's Bicycle
• Our New Horse
• Saltbush Bill
• Tom Collins
• Waltzing Matilda

Bertolt Brecht Sings Mac the Knife (1929)

Source.

Digital Tradition Folk Music Database

Source. Traditional Material. Lyrics + midi illustrations of melodies.

c/f mudcat.org Traditional Music and Folklore Collection and Community

A Ballad of the Werewolf (Sacramento Daily Union, Volume 80, Number 62, 1 November 1890)

Source.

The Pre-Tabloid Art of 19th-Century Crime

Source.

Thanks Allison Meier via Hyperallergic

Folk Songs of Ontario (1959)

1958 recording by Edith Fulton Fowke.

Scans of 19th Century Scottish Broadsides, with Murder Ballads

Broadside entitled 'Ann Semple's Confession'
Broadside ballad entitled 'Billy Pattison'
Broadside ballad entitled 'The Confession of James Bryce'
Broadside entitled 'Confessions made by William Burke'
Broadside entitled 'Elegiac Lines On the Tragical Murder of Poor Daft Jamie
Broadside entitled 'Elegie'
Broadside entitled 'Elegie'
Broadside ballad concerning the execution of Captain Thomas Green for piracy and murder
Broadside ballad entitled 'The Fate of Johnny Johnson'
Broadside ballad entitled 'Hare's Dream!'
Broadside ballad entitled 'Jamie Wilson's Mother's Dream'
Broadside entitled 'A Lament for Dr Pritchard's Children'
Broadside entitled 'Lament of Macfarlane, Blackwood and Young'
Broadside entitled 'The Lament of Mr Taylor'
Broadside entitled 'Lament of Peter Mclean, now lying under the Sentence of Death'
Broadside entitled 'Lamentation of Elizabeth Banks'
Broadside entitled 'Lamentation of Mary Braid'
Broadside entitled 'Lamentations As of John Thomson & David Dobie'
Broadside entitled 'The Lamentations of McFarlane, Blackwood and Young
Broadside ballad entitled 'The Last Words of James Mackpherson Murderer'
Broadside entitled 'Lines On The Gilmerton Murder'
Broadside ballad entitled 'Lines Supposed to have Been Written by Mrs Wilson, Daft Jamie's Mother'
Broadside ballad entitled 'Margaret Bell's Lament'
Broadside entitled 'Margaret Dickson's Penetential Confession'
Broadside ballad entitled 'McGorran's Lament'
Broadside entitled 'Murder of Betsy Smith'
Broadside ballad entitled 'The Murder of Maria Marten'
Broadside ballad entitled 'The Recent Murders'
Broadside entitled 'Robert Stirrat's'
Broadside entitled 'The Sorrowful Lamentation'
Broadside entitled 'The Vision'
Broadside ballad entitled 'Widow MacFarlane's Lamentation for Her Son'
Broadside ballad entitled 'William Burke.--A New Song'
Broadside ballad entitled 'William Burke's Confession'
Broadside ballad entitled 'William Burke's Murders in the Westport'
Broadside ballads entitled 'William Burke's Murders in the Westport' and 'Late Murders. A New Song'

Canadian Murder Ballads: A Preliminary Study of Ballads and Songs Showing Our Responses to Crimes of Violence - Tim Rogers (1984)

In Canadian Folk Music Bulletin/Canadian Folk Music.  Volume 18.3: 1984.

The Child Ballads

Source.

Victorian Gallows Ballads

Source.

Mary Arnold, The Female Monster
Former prostitute uses carnivorous beetles to blind her own infant child. Hopes to increase its value as a tool for begging, but wins only prison and transportation.

The Execution of Nathaniel Mobbs
Drunken bully cuts his wife's throat in a fit of jealous rage. Bungles his own suicide attempt, and lives long enough to be hanged at Newgate.

Mrs Dyer, The Old Baby-Farmer
Reading woman takes in illegitimate babies for cash. Strangles 40 or more, then dumps their bodies in the Thames.

The Gallows Child
Nine-year old boy is condemned to death for stealing six handkerchiefs from an Oxford Street shop. Shopkeeper had paid five shillings each for them.

The Life and Trial of Palmer
Boozy, gambling doctor poisons family and friends to clear his debts. Hanged at Stafford Gaol, but survives as footnote in the Sherlock Holmes stories.

The Silent Grove
Young man gets his girlfriend pregnant, then kills both her and the baby to avoid responsibility. One of many Bloody Miller/ Berkshire Tragedy variants - a combination of which eventually became Knoxville Girl.

The Liverpool Lodger
Evil lodger slaughters family and robs them. Victims include pregnant mother and two very young boys.

The Unnatural Murder
Disguised sailor returns home to his parents, hoping to surprise them with his new-found wealth. They mistake him for a stranger, kill him, and steal his gold.

Murder at Westmill
Nine-year-old boy brutally murders his infant sister. Mother driven mad by the crime.

Streams of Crimson Blood
Burglar breaks into rich old couple's house and kills them both.

The Murdered Maid
Poverty-stricken yokels kill lodger for her savings. But it's really their own daughter.

Cruel Lizzie Vickers
Housekeeper bullies her way into elderly employer's will then beats him to death for the £1,000 involved. That's the ballad's version, but the Old Bailey jury found her not guilty.