Two swords in one scabbard

If I weren't a lazy slob who hates to do research, I'd be slashing some antique English ballads.

I have a new folk CD (John Wesley Harding's "Trad Arr Jones," which is decent but not fabulous, if you're curious) with a version of "Little Musgrave" that I've never heard, and it's slashy as hell. All the versions of it are slashy as hell, actually.

You know the ballad? Little Musgrave meets Lord Barnard's wife at church, and she invites him to come and sleep with her while her husband's away. Lord Barnard comes home, catches them in bed together, challenges Musgrave to a swordfight, kills him, taunts his wife, gets an answer he doesn't like, kills the wife. In the oldest versions he then waxes poetic about how beautiful they are, and in some cases kills himself.

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