A Cruel Mother begins with a woman falling in love with a man. They are together for over a year, and she even gives birth to what we believe to be his children. Their relationship continues until one day her lover cheats on her. The incremental repetition between the phrases “She leaned her back against a tree” and “She leaned her back against a thorn” implies that she was not even slightly prepared for betrayal, thus she felt stabbed in the back. We have no way of knowing, however, if it was only the feeling of betrayal that made her execute her own children. The author or authors give no mention of the woman’s personality or history. Thus endless speculation is spawned such as the possibility that the woman had some type of mental illness. The uncertainty of the reason adds a sense of mystery to the ballad, making it much more interesting than without. An extreme supernatural element in the ballad is also a peculiar addition. In the ballad, her dead children appear to her as spirits. Upon seeing them, the mother experiences regret and deploys the conventional phrase “O, bonnie barns, gin ye were mine, I would dress ye in the silk sae fine.” This common phrase actually means the mother is trying to tell her dead children, who she murdered, she took good care of them. Such a statement is saturated with tragic irony. She even goes as far as asking her dead children what kind of death she will die and where she will go. The dead children reply with what sounds like a sort of curse. One cannot be sure exactly what this curse entails, however, it is certain the mother has sufficient punishment in her future.