Lady Drummers, Highwaymen and Smugglers
One of the tracks on this week's show was Female Smuggler from the new album of the same name by . It's more than an excellent piece of music, it is part of that whole tradition of songs in which a woman dresses up as man, usually a soldier, sailor, pirate or highwayman. In the latter case, - the female highwayman, was the subject of a much recorded song, put together from various sources by .
But it is, of course, an old tradition: old was not averse to a spot of cross-dressing: Twelfth Night, As You Like It and The Merchant of Venice, in all of them females take on the roles of men. And this seems to be a tradition with some roots in the truth: (Gráinne Nà Mháille (c. 1530  c. 1603, also known as Granuaile or Gráinne Mhaol) was an Irish woman pirate; was a 15th century French peasant girl who fought against the English forces during the latter part of the Hundred Years' War. She was captured by the English and was burned at the stake after being convicted by a religious court; the act of dressing in male clothing was one of the principal reasons for her execution.Ìý and were late 17th century English pirates.ÌýUlrika Eleonora StÃ¥lhammar was a Swedish woman who served as a soldier during the Great Northern War and married a woman. fought as a dragoon in the British army in 1740, and in more recent times , who died in 1964, was an English reporter who secretly posed as a man to become a soldier during the First World War.
Here's just a few of the traditional songs relating to cross-dressing:
The Female Cabin Boy
The Handsome Cabin Boy
The Female Drummer
William Taylor
The Famous Flower Of Serving Men
Sovay
Canadee-i-o
Look up any of the above titles and you will be led into yet another of the fascinating alleyways that thread the world of folksong.
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