by Susan O. Friedman (Author)

Child ballads are those long, bloody songs where everyone dies, right?

Half of the ballads do kill off at least one person, usually violently. A ship sinks, a regiment is slain in war, a man kills his pregnant lover, a brother kills his brother or sister, a father kills his daughter, someone dies by poisoning, childbirth, starvation, drowning or plague. In Body Count, Dr. Friedman explores all of the Child ballads that involve death in some form (actual or threatened), quoting lines from the Child and Bronson collections to uncover what happened and why.