Handlyng Synne

Uncle Jerry brings out his copy of Robert Manning of Brunne's Middle English work Handlyng Synne (Handling Sin), which catalogs the Ten Commandments and types of sin. He notes that Manning writes about women who transform into witches and whose wandering uterus causes them to go insane, connecting this to the centuries-long tradition of men characterizing women as mad or witchy, the very tradition the song rebels against.