1.2 Introduction to the Ballad

The popular ballad is a form of anony-mous narrative song, "transmitted orally, which tells a story". Typically, the popular ballad is condensed and impersonal: the narrator begins with a dramatic or exciting episode, and tells the story tersely in actions and dialogues (sometimes by means of dialogues alone) without self-reference or personal feelings.

Though the ballad is a form which is still written, "popular ballad" in most literatures belongs to the early periods before written literature was highly developed. "The origins of the popular (or folk) ballad are much disputed. The theory that they were first composed by communal effort, taking shape as the songs with which primitive people accompanied ritual dances, no longer seems plausible".

The English ballads probably came into being during the five-hundred-year period since 1200. "'Judas', which exists in a thirteenth-century manuscript, is the oldest English ballad preserved in writing". However, having been passed down mainly by oral tradition since the Middle Ages, the ballads do not have any known author or a correct version. They remained an oral tradition until the increased interest in folk songs in the 18th century led collectors to publish volumes of popular ballads. Thomas Percy, Irish Anglican Bishop (1729-1811) created a new interest in ballads and their connection to folk poetry. They had long been ignored within literary circles. With his collection of ballads, Percy has been acknowledged to have inspired countless other English Romantic poets even as ballads themselves were losing popularity.

Ballads were originally songs which told a story. Traditional ballads are rhymed verse usually dedicated to sharing something about life with common folk who were otherwise illiterate. With subjects that were tragic, comedy, or heroic, simple people were informed about their culture. Also, they must not only tell a story in verse but also lend themselves to being sung, so the narrative and style must be simple enough to be followed at a hearing."The simplicity of the tunes to which they were sung not only influenced the distinctive verse form—normally a quatrain with four stresses per line—but also encouraged a corresponding simplicity in the narrative itself, and made individualizing flourishes impossible". Another common feature of ballads is the choral practice of using refrains and other kinds of repetition, sometimes of the fourth lines in succeeding stanzas, as a refrain, sometimes of the third and fourth lines of a stanza and sometimes of the entire stanzas.

Selected Reading

The great collection of English ballads is that of F. J. Child, The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, "a collection of over 300 traditional songs from England and Scotland". It was published between 1882 and 1898 by Houghton Mifflin in ten volumes and later was reissued in a five-volume edition."Robin Hood and the Three Squires" is one of the most famous stories in the collection. The excerpt below is in the second version in the Child Ballad 140 collections. It is a narrative poem about one of Robin Hood's most famous exploits that he uses a disguise to trick his enemies.

Robin Hood, while on his way to Nottingham, meets an old woman who is weeping for three squires condemned to die that day, not for serious crimes, but for killing the king's deer. He then meets an old palmer, who confirms the bad news. He changes clothes with the palmer who at first takes the proposal as a mock. After he disguises himself as the palmer, Robin Hood enters Nottingham to offer his service as the hangman and asks the sheriff what he will give to his old fellow. The sheriff offers suits and pence; Robin says, hangmen be cursed, he will never take to that business. He has a horn in his pocket which will blow the sheriff little good; the sheriff bids him blow his horn. The first blast brings a hundred and fifty of Robin's men; the second brings three score more. They free their own men and hang the sheriff.

Robin Hood and the Three Squires

Questions for Discussion

1. Why do you think Robin Hood treats the old woman, the palmer and the sheriff differently?

2. What functions does a dialogue play in ballads? Use this text to illustrate your views.