A Collection of Ballads

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Title: A Collection of Ballads
Author: Andrew Lang
Release Date: September, 1997 [EBook #1054]
[This file was first
posted on August 1, 1997]
[Most recently updated: June 25, 2003]
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Language: English
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0. START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, A

COLLECTION OF BALLADS ***
Transcribed by David Price, email [email protected]

A Collection of Ballads
Contents:
Sir Patrick Spens
Battle Of Otterbourne
Tam Lin
Thomas The
Rhymer
"Sir Hugh; Or The Jew's Daughter"
Son Davie! Son Davie!

The Wife Of Usher's Well
The Twa Corbies
The Bonnie Earl
Moray
Clerk Saunders
Waly, Waly
Love Gregor; Or, The Lass Of
Lochroyan
The Queen's Marie
Kinmont Willie
Jamie Telfer

The Douglas Tragedy
The Bonny Hind
Young Bicham
The
Loving Ballad Of Lord Bateman
The Bonnie House O' Airly
Rob
Roy
The Battle Of Killie-Crankie
Annan Water
The Elphin
Nourrice
Cospatrick
Johnnie Armstrang
Edom O' Gordon
Lady
Anne Bothwell's Lament
Jock O The Side
Lord Thomas And Fair
Annet
Fair Annie
The Dowie Dens Of Yarrow
Sir Roland
Rose
The Red And White Lily
The Battle Of Harlaw--Evergreen Version

Traditionary Version
Dickie Macphalion
A Lyke-Wake Dirge

The Laird Of Waristoun
May Colven
Johnie Faa
Hobbie Noble

The Twa Sisters
Mary Ambree
Alison Gross

The Heir Of Lynne

Gordon Of Brackley
Edward, Edward
Young Benjie
Auld
Maitland
The Broomfield Hill
Willie's Ladye
Robin Hood And
The Monk
Robin Hood And The Potter
Robin Hood And The
Butcher
INTRODUCTION
When the learned first gave serious attention to popular ballads, from
the time of Percy to that of Scott, they laboured under certain
disabilities. The Comparative Method was scarcely
understood, and
was little practised. Editors were content to study the ballads of their
own countryside, or, at most, of Great Britain. Teutonic and Northern
parallels to our ballads were then adduced, as by Scott and Jamieson. It

was later that the ballads of Europe, from the Faroes to Modern Greece,
were compared with our own, with European Marchen, or children's
tales, and with the popular songs, dances, and traditions of classical and
savage peoples. The results of this more recent comparison may be
briefly stated. Poetry begins, as Aristotle says, in improvisation. Every
man is his own poet, and, in moments of stronge motion, expresses
himself in song. A typical example is the Song of Lamech in Genesis--
"I have slain a man to my wounding,
And a young man to my hurt."
Instances perpetually occur in the Sagas: Grettir, Egil,
Skarphedin,
are always singing. In Kidnapped, Mr. Stevenson introduces "The Song
of the Sword of Alan," a fine example of Celtic practice: words and air
are beaten out together, in the heat of victory. In the same way, the
women sang improvised dirges, like Helen; lullabies, like the lullaby of
Danae in Simonides, and flower songs, as in modern Italy. Every
function of life, war, agriculture, the chase, had its appropriate magical
and mimetic dance and song, as in Finland, among Red Indians, and
among Australian blacks. "The deeds of men" were chanted by heroes,
as by Achilles; stories were told in alternate verse and prose; girls, like
Homer's Nausicaa, accompanied dance and ball play, priests and
medicine-men accompanied rites and magical ceremonies by songs.
These practices are world-wide, and world-old. The thoroughly popular
songs, thus evolved, became the rude material of a
professional class
of minstrels, when these arose, as in the heroic age of Greece. A
minstrel might be attached to a Court, or a noble; or he might go
wandering with song and harp among the people. In either case, this
class of men developed more regular and ample measures. They
evolved the hexameter; the laisse of the Chansons de Geste; the strange
technicalities of Scandinavian poetry; the metres of Vedic hymns; the
choral odes of Greece. The narrative popular chant became in their
hands the Epic, or the mediaeval rhymed romance. The metre of
improvised verse changed into the artistic lyric. These lyric forms were
fixed, in many cases, by the art of writing. But poetry did not remain
solely in professional and literary hands. The mediaeval minstrels and
jongleurs (who may best be studied in Leon Gautier's Introduction to

his Epopees Francaises) sang in Court and Camp.