Incest and the traditional ballad

The Pan-Hispanic oral ballad tradition provides us with precious examples of how traditional narratives - romances - many with roots in medieval times, continue to provide the communities where they are remembered with relevant commentaries on social issues. Amongst the romances most frequently collected from the modern oral tradition, both in the Iberian Peninsula and the Latin American countries, the romance of Delgadina offers us a testimony of how a recurring social problem such as incest is dealt with according to the particular view points of the communities where this and other ballads serve as a vehicle for the transmission of values. In this paper I discuss the various solutions proposed by Delgadina and other traditional ballads to this recurring social problem