VI.

We are now in position to attempt a summary of Professor Child’s conception of the popular ballad. He regarded it as a distinct species of poetry, which precedes the poetry of art, as the product of a homogeneous people, the expression of our common human nature, of the mind and heart of the people, never of the personality of an individual man, devoid, therefore, of all subjectivity and self-consciousness. Hence the author counts for nothing; hence, too, the ballad is difficult to imitate and most attempts in this way are ridiculous failures. In transmission the ballad regularly departs from the original form, least in the mouths of unlearned people, more in the hands of professional singers or editors. It is at its best when it has come down by a purely domestic tradition, yet even so it is sometimes influenced by printed literature; and much depends on the experience and selection of the reciters, and on their varying memory, which is, however, ordinarily remarkable for its tenacity. Less fortunate is the ballad when it passes through low mouths or hands, suffering corruption of various kinds,--in the style of the attorney’s clerk, or the housemaid or the serving-man, or ostler, or blind beggar. In the hands of the _bänkelsänger_ or of the minstrel, the ballad departs still further from its original form. Or, rewritten for the broadside press, it is seriously enfeebled, or retrenched and marred, though it may retain some original features, and there are thus degrees of departure from the original matter and manner. The broadside may, in turn, become tradition. It is, so far as it appears in Professor Child’s later collection, always founded on tradition, and this tradition lives after the composition of the broadside, and may influence the later versions of the printed form. Last comes the modern editor, and by him the ballad is sometimes lengthened,--by combination of different versions, by interpolation of new stanzas, always more or less unlike the popular style; or it is sometimes “improved,” or retouched, or emended, or altered,--changed to something in glaring contrast to the groundwork. Some results of the vicissitudes of transmission are, the change of the hero’s nationality, of his name, of his rôle; change of the scene of action; corruption of diction resulting in perversion of sense or in nonsense; introduction of learned words. The ballad thus suffers in transmission, and is at its best when it is early caught and fixed in print. It is sometimes counterfeited or imitated, and counterfeits are included in the later collection for contrast, for much the same reason that thieves are photographed, or because they may contain relics of something genuine or better.

Of the Subject-Matter of the ballad, the sources may be, and in the best instances are, purely popular, consisting of material which appears only in popular literature. Professor Child mentions no instance where a prose tale is the source of a ballad, but the ballad, he says, may sometimes be resolved into a prose tale. Popular origin is attested by foreign parallels in folk-literature. Of such literature certain features or themes are characteristic, such as the quibbling oath, the miraculous harvest, the childbirth in the wood, the testament, the riddle, heroic sentiment, etc. The source may, again, be an actual occurrence, in which case the ballad, while not deliberate fiction, is yet not loyal to the fact. Or the source may be a romance, or the source of a romance, in which case oral tradition may be older than written, the ballad older than the romance. Or the source may be earlier ballads, mechanically and deliberately put together in later ones, made over and assimilated in the _Gest of Robin Hood_. In the course of transmission certain features appear which are not characteristic of popular literature; the subject-matter of the true ballad does not deal in extravagance, or exaggeration, or platitude; it is not prosaic, over-refined, cynical, sophisticated, sentimental, unnatural, trite, or moral, though the “pungent buckishness” of the broadside, and the gay cynicism of the minstrel, are foreign to it.

So far as Technique is concerned, the ballad must have plot. The story may not be completely told; conclusion, transitions, and preliminaries may be omitted; but the result is not nonsense, the ballad is not incoherent. At its best it is, however, brief. It is careless of geography, and, except in some,--and some of the best,--of the Robin Hood ballads, it touches Setting lightly. In dealing with the Supernatural it does not attempt to explain the action or to describe supernatural figures; ghosts, however, do not walk without reason.

In Style the ballad is artless and homely, and in it the conceit, and literary or learned words and phrases, are out of place. Yet it has certain conventions of its own, such as the “commonplace,” the repetition of a message by a messenger, the verbally similar treatment of similar incidents as they occur in different ballads. Emotionally, the ghost ballad is impressive and affecting; and, in general, the ballad may be infectious, or spirited and life-like, or pathetic, or tender, or humorous, or vigorous and not lacking in color or flavor. It is essentially lyrical, and its lyrical quality is not less essential than plot. Often it absolutely requires the support of a melody and the comment of a burden. This burden sometimes foreshadows the calamity, sometimes enhances by contrast the gloom of the conclusion. It is usually less than the stanza with which it was sung; and, unlike the refrain, it was sung, not after the stanza, but with it. It is sometimes of different metre, sometimes not. The absence of the burden is in no case proof that it never existed. never existed.

Walter Morris Hart.

FOOTNOTES:

[134] _Modern Philology_, I, 377 f.

[135] Professor Gummere in _Modern Philology_, I, 378.

[136] III, 303.

[137] II, 136.

[138] I, vii.

[139] II, 296.

[140] II, 263. An old woman (the reciter of E) knew _Chield Morice_ as a child, but later learned _Gil Morice_ which began to be more fashionable. II, 264.

[141] II, 464, n.

[142] V, 178.

[143] I, 119.

[144] IV, 231.

[145] I, 89. See also the comment on Apollodorus and the Cretan fairy-tale, I, 337, quoted, p. 774, below.

[146] II, 346.

[147] I, 435.

[148] Quoted, III, 254.

[149] I, 360.

[150] II, 173.

[151] II, 170.

[152] II, 368.

[153] IV, 255, n.

[154] IV, 255.

[155] IV, 256. Cf. B 10, D 10, E 19; F 11; E 10, F 6.

[156] II, 441.

[157] IV, 144.

[158] I, 391.

[159] I, 34.

[160] I, 257.

[161] II, 478.

[162] Cf. I, 444 f.

[163] III, 403.

[164] III, 410.

[165] II, 441.

[166] III, 305.

[167] III, 334.

[168] III, 334, n.

[169] V, 21.

[170] I, 404.

[171] I, 455.

[172] I, 391.

[173] II, 180.

[174] II, 424.

[175] II, 480.

[176] The comparison of broadsides with traditional versions is instructive. See I, A, a, b, c; 10, A, a; 45, B; 53, L, M; 73, D; 104, B, 112, E (and II, 491); 110, A; 145, C; 151; 152; 153; 162, B; 167, B; 268. Much of the later Robin Hood poetry looks like “char-work done for the petty press” (III, 42). _Robin Hood Rescuing Will Stutly_ (141) “is a ballad made for print, with little of the traditional in the matter and nothing in the style” (III, 185).

[177] II, 480.

[178] I, 335.

[179] “Jamieson was not always precise in the account he gave of the changes he made in his texts” (IV, 255). Cf. also I, 138.

[180] Stanzas 20, 21, 27, etc. I, 119. Cf. II, 83.

[181] I, 297.

[182] II, 63 f.

[183] I, 335.

[184] II, 302.

[185] I, 112.

[186] IV, 5.

[187] I, 138.

[188] III, 472.

[189] II, 428.

[190] IV, 39. Cf. II, 317.

[191] II, 226.

[192] III, 276.

[193] V, 2.

[194] II, 19.

[195] III, 96.

[196] IV, 156.

[197] IV, 178.

[198] V, 309.

[199] III, 42.

[200] III, 103.

[201] III, 159.

[202] I, 320.

[203] III, 206.

[204] V, 168.

[205] III, 305.

[206] I, 455.

[207] V, 1.

[208] IV, 437.

[209] I, 335.

[210] II, 302.

[211] III, 486.

[212] V, 12. Cf. also I, 35, IV, 10, 142, 401, for passages condemned as “modern.”

[213] III, 140.

[214] II, 342.

[215] V, 182.

[216] Communicated by the Rev. Mr Lamb to Hutchinson “with this harmless preamble: ‘a song 500 years old, made by the old Mountain Bard, Duncan Frasier, living on Cheviot, A. D. 1270.’”

[217] I, 308.

[218] III, 42.

[219] I, 46; examples follow.

[220] II, 170, n.

[221] I, 336.

[222] I, 337.

[223] V, 59.

[224] V, 48.

[225] II, 7.

[226] II, 416.

[227] I, 142.

[228] Examples, I, 143.

[229] I, 1.

[230] II, 478.

[231] III, 159.

[232] III, 235.

[233] I, 121.

[234] II, 19.

[235] III, 366.

[236] IV, 51.

[237] III, 317.

[238] III, 304.

[239] III, 417.

[240] III, 410.

[241] IV, 359.

[242] III, 265 f.

[243] I, 320.

[244] I, 193.

[245] II, 67.

[246] I, 67.

[247] III,

[248] IV, 401.

[249] V, 182.

[250] III, 49 f.

[251] III, 51.

[252] III, 293.

[253] III, 220.

[254] V, 166.

[255] IV, 391.

[256] IV, 393.

[257] IV, 401.

[258] IV, 415.

[259] IV, 423.

[260] IV, 434.

[261] III, 49.

[262] III, 40.

[263] IV, 10.

[264] Cf. III, 225.

[265] III, 381.

[266] III, 165.

[267] III, 197.

[268] II, 296.

[269] IV, 161.

[270] I, 253. Cf. also III, 258.

[271] II, 263.

[272] III, 381.

[273] II, 83.

[274] I, 34.

[275] II, 302.

[276] V, 156 f.

[277] _Universal Cyclopædia_, “Ballad Poetry.” The lyrical element is of equal importance; see p. 790, below.

[278] IV, 126.

[279] V, 165.

[280] IV, 192. [The Broom of Cowdenknows (217)].

[281] IV, 63. [The Gypsie Laddie (200)].

[282] I, 82.

[283] II, 260.

[284] Surely better _as ballad_. Cf. p. 796, below.

[285] II, 18.

[286] II, 7.

[287] V, 178.

[288] IV, 435.

[289] IV, 145.

[290] III, 317.

[291] II, 373.

[292] II, 342.

[293] II, 355.

[294] II, 302.

[295] III, 51.

[296] III, 486.

[297] III, 95.

[298] IV, 362.

[299] II, 378.

[300] V, 59.

[301] IV, 301, n.

[302] IV, 301, n.

[303] IV, 434.

[304] I, 320, n.

[305] IV, 186.

[306] I, 167.

[307] I, 88.

[308] I, 112

[309] [The true ballad has little to say of mental states.]

[310] IV, 5. The stanza reads:

But he’s taen aff his gude steel cap, And thrice he’s waved it in the air; The Dinlay snaw was neer mair white Nor the lyart locks of Harden’s hair.

[311] IV, 10.

[312] II, 430.

[313] II, 428.

[314] IV, 145.

[315] I, 297.

[316] Cf. II, 83, 317; IV, 39.

[317] See the _Index of Matters and Literature_, V, 474 f.

[318] II, 309, n.

[319] III, 96.

[320] IV, 426.

[321] IV, 391.

[322] IV, 435.

[323] II, 227.

[324] II, 238.

[325] V, 59.

[326] IV, 145.

[327] V, 168.

[328] I, 329.

[329] IV, 301.

[330] I, 253.

[331] III, 53.

[332] III, 258.

[333] II, 296.

[334] V, 59.

[335] III, 305.

[336] II, 67.

[337] II, 260.

[338] I, 358.

[339] III, 129.

[340] V, 201.

[341] IV, 75.

[342] II, 204, n.

[343] I, 7. See the foot-note for Professor Child’s longest discussion of the burden.

[344] _Sheath and Knife_ (16), also, was accessible but omitted.

[345] _Ballads_, I, xi, n. “Certain short romances which formerly stood in the First Book, have been dropped from this second Edition [1860], in order to give the collection a homogeneous character.” _Ballads_ [1860], I, xii.

[346] “A song,” II, 317. (Where merely volume and page are given the reference is still to the later collection; references to the earlier are preceded by the word _Ballads_.)

[347] II, 16.

[348] II, 429.

[349] V, 34, n.

[350] _Ballads_, III, 360.

[351] _Ballads_, VI, 263.

[352] _Ballads_, III, 61.

[353] IV, 142.

[354] _Ballads_, I, 341.

[355] I, 218, n.

[356] _Ballads_, III, 293.

[357] _Ballads_, VI, 220. Cf. Mr Andrew Lang’s plea for _Auld Maitland_, _Folk-Lore_, XIII, 191 ff.

[358] See also the comments on the Rev. Mr Lamb’s _Laidley Worm of Spindleston Heugh_, _Ballads_, I, 386, and cf. p. 772, above.

[359] _Ballads_, III, 128.

[360] _Ballads_, IV, 161.

[361] _Ballads_, IV, 143 f.

[362] Cf. p. 757, above.

[363] _Ballads_, V, iv.

[364] _Ballads_, III, 148-149.

[365] Cf. p. 767, above.

[366] _Ballads_, III, 225.

[367] I, 88.

[368] _Ballads_, III, 173.

[369] II, 56.

[370] _Ballads_, II, 30.

[371] II, 275.

[372] _Ballads_, I, ix, n.

[373] Cf. p. 762, above.

[374] _Ballads_, I, 306 n.

[375] _Ballads_, II, 220.

[376] _Ballads_, I, 270.

[377] See I, 62, and, for the omitted couplets, I, 80-81.

[378] _Ballads_, I, 265.

[379] _Ballads_, II, 22.

[380] II, 260. See, also, the comments on Jamieson’s _Child Rowland and Burd Ellen_, _Ballads_, I, 416, and _English and Scottish Popular Ballads_, V, 201, n.

[381] Cf. p. 769, above.

[382] _Ballads_, I, 256.

[383] _Ballads_, II, 115.

[384] _Ballads_, II, 64.

[385] _Ballads_, II, 45.

[386] _Ballads_, VII, 194.

[387] Cf. the comment on _The Hunting of the Cheviot_, _Ballads_, VII, 25.

[388] _Ballads_, IV, 17. For the later comment, see p. 777, above.

[389] _Ballads_, VI, 22.

[390] _Ballads_, III, 148-149.

[391] “Excepting the two satirical stanzas with which Scott’s version (C) concludes.”

[392] See also the comment in the _Ballads_, quoted p. 804, below.

[393] The numbers in brackets are those affixed to the ballads in the later collection.

Transcriber's Notes:

A number of typographical errors were corrected silently.

Cover image is in the public domain.

Page number jump in Appendix was in the original.

Under “Kinloch MSS, I, 319.” there is a skip from verse 4 to 7 that was in the original.

Footnote 247 was missing the page number in the original.

Table of Contents modified to have two lines for Additions and Corrections.

Index for "Morte Darthur, Malory" corrected to page 298 from non-existent 982.

Character shown as ι̮ is an imprecise representation of the original.

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