Uploaded January 2025 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
How do folk songs transmit histories of ab*rtion and the uses of ab*rtive herbs? This song, “Let No Man Steal Your Thyme,” uses layered puns to communicate experiences about how to resolve unwanted pregnancies. Women are warned to let no man steal their thyme/time. In some contexts a few hundred years ago, singers would have understood thyme as an herb that helped to regulate menstrual cycles- so in this case, stolen thyme could mean your cycle has stopped! In the place of thyme, rue spreads… and rue was historically used as an abortive herb (It was often called "the grey herb" or "the bitter herb." A song like this one would have helped everyday people to understand their options when they found themselves “in trouble.”
*I’m NOT endorsing the use of herbal ab*rtifacients, which can be EXTREMELY DANGEROUS, especially if taken with no guidance- but we still have a right to know this history *
We’ll be exploring songs like this one in my course Badass Women in Folk Song. Learn a one-of-a-kind collection of songs from Scotland, England and Appalachia all about creative, cunning and subversive women- and get lots of history along the way. We start the week of January 12th, so sign up now! You can get more info by going to sarosings. com
**I’ve just added an additional experience for the course: We’ll have a special guest lecture about how women have used literature and plant metaphors to talk about their experiences of ab*rtion and miscarriage, to parallel our studies of ab*rtifacients and coded language in folk song.**
How do folk songs transmit histories of ab*rtion and the uses of ab*rtive herbs? This song, “Let No Man Steal Your Thyme,” uses layered puns to communicate experiences about how to resolve unwanted pregnancies. Women are warned to let no man steal their thyme/time. In some contexts a few hundred years ago, singers would have understood thyme as an herb that helped to regulate menstrual cycles- so in this case, stolen thyme could mean your cycle has stopped! In the place of thyme, rue spreads… and rue was historically used as an abortive herb (It was often called "the grey herb" or "the bitter herb." A song like this one would have helped everyday people to understand their options when they found themselves “in trouble.”
*I’m NOT endorsing the use of herbal ab*rtifacients, which can be EXTREMELY DANGEROUS, especially if taken with no guidance- but we still have a right to know this history *
We’ll be exploring songs like this one in my course Badass Women in Folk Song. Learn a one-of-a-kind collection of songs from Scotland, England and Appalachia all about creative, cunning and subversive women- and get lots of history along the way. We start the week of January 12th, so sign up now! You can get more info by going to sarosings. com
**I’ve just added an additional experience for the course: We’ll have a special guest lecture about how women have used literature and plant metaphors to talk about their experiences of ab*rtion and miscarriage, to parallel our studies of ab*rtifacients and coded language in folk song.**
