ABSTRACT
If ballads can provide environments for negotiation about matters of marriage and social life, gender and power, comprehending multiple meanings that nonetheless relate to everyday experience, then the appearance of incest as a ballad subject might perhaps come as something of a surprise. It remains uncertain whether this explanation was the singer's or comes from George B. Gardiner himself, perhaps based on his identification of the Child ballad type. In contrast, incest in 'The Bonny Hind' and 'The King's Dochter Lady Jean' arises from an act of seduction, or outright rape, in the greenwood, after which it emerges that the man and woman are brother and sister. The unwitting manner in which brother and sister in these two ballads are caught up in an incestuous relationship, and the horror they experience when they discover what has happened, fairly evidently draw on the widespread prohibition or taboo against incest.
