My research aims to engage with notions of women and gender as they arise in ballad narratives. Pertinent to my study is the interface of oral and print cultures during this period; my research will consider the impact that ballad transmission—from oral narrative to printed broadside and back again—had on the representation of women’s experiences in early modern popular culture. My approach leans towards what has become known as ‘the cultural turn,’ a move that has seen the reappraisal of cultural texts that have traditionally been situated on the peripheries of the literary canon. My research aims to explore what ephemera, such as ballads, can contribute towards an understanding of early modern culture that extends beyond canonical literary works and indeed, beyond distinctions between ‘high’ and ‘low’ forms of cultural production.