Ballads of Magic & Mystery

Not Just the Tudors

History Hit

History

4.8 • 3K Ratings

🗓️ 16 October 2025

⏱️ 57 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Songs have always carried stories of love, loss, rebellion and hope. Professor Suzannah Lipscomb is joined by author Amy Jeffs, illustrator Gwen Burns and composer Natalie Brice to explore the magical, mythical, and mysterious world of traditional ballads from the Early Modern period.

Together, they uncover how centuries-old songs captured human experience, challenged authority and gave voice to universal themes of love, death, female agency, and survival. With live performances woven in, they reveal how these songs have endured through oral tradition, shaped cultural memory, and continue to inspire modern audiences with their themes of transformation, resilience, and empowerment.

More:

Dancing Plague of 1518

The Witch

Presented by Professor Suzannah Lipscomb. The researcher is Alice Smith, audio editor is Amy Haddow and the producer is Rob Weinberg. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff.

All music courtesy of Epidemic Sounds.

Not Just the Tudors is a History Hit podcast.

Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.

You can take part in our listener survey here:

https://insights.historyhit.com/history-hit-podcast-always-on

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hello, I'm Professor Susanna Lipscomb.
0:02.6	If you'd like not just the Tudors ad-free to get early access and bonus episodes, sign up to History Hit.
0:10.5	With a History Hit subscription, you can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries,
0:16.0	including my own recent two-part series, A World Torn Apart, the Dissolution of the Monastries, and enjoy a new
0:23.7	release every week. Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com forward slash subscribe.
0:32.5	No business leader wakes up thinking, gee, I hope I can make some huge trade-offs today. And yet that's
0:38.4	exactly what most security solutions ask of you. Trade speed for safety, user experience for control,
0:44.7	trade keeping things simple for keeping them secure. Not so with OCTA. Octa gives you a unified
0:51.2	solution to protect identity. No friction, no frustration, no compromises.
0:56.6	Security that's a launch pad instead of a limiter?
0:59.2	It's possible.
1:00.4	It's Octor.
1:04.9	This is a paid advertisement from BetterHelp.
1:08.8	I have two very long-term relationships, one with my hairdresser and one with my therapist.
1:15.2	My therapist is a ray of light who understands me better than I know myself and has helped me out of many a whole.
1:23.0	October 10th is World Mental Health Day, a moment to reflect on why mental well-being matters
1:28.9	and the importance of those who support it, because the right therapist can change everything.
1:35.6	Better Help therapists have helped over 5 million people worldwide, and in every case there
1:41.0	was a therapist who listened, who asked the right questions, and whose
1:45.2	care and expertise helped someone move forward. If you've never talked to a therapist, but have
1:50.9	something on your mind, know this. Connecting with the right person can help. And BetterHelp makes
1:56.7	it easier to get started. One thing BetterHelp are really good at is matching a person to a
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from History Hit, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of History Hit and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.