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Read Ebook: Ballad Book by Bates Katharine Lee Editor
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Ebook has 1239 lines and 51352 words, and 25 pages
INTRODUCTION
BALLADS OF SUPERSTITION. THE WEE WEE MAN TAMLANE TRUE THOMAS THE ELFIN KNIGHT LADY ISOBEL AND THE ELF-KNIGHT TOM THUMBE KEMPION ALISON GROSS THE WIFE OF USHER'S WELL A LYKE-WAKE DIRGE PROUD LADY MARGARET THE TWA SISTERS O' BINNORIE THE DEMON LOVER RIDDLES WISELY EXPOUNDED
BALLADS OF TRADITION. SIR PATRICK SPENS THE BATTLE OF OTTERBURNE THE HUNTING OF THE CHEVIOT EDOM O' GORDON KINMONT WILLIE KING JOHN AND THE ABBOT OF CANTERBURY ROBIN HOOD RESCUING THE WIDOW'S THREE SONS ROBIN HOOD AND ALLIN A DALE ROBIN HOOD'S DEATH AND BURIAL
ROMANTIC AND DOMESTIC BALLADS. ANNIE OF LOCHROYAN LORD THOMAS AND FAIR ANNET THE BANKS O' YARROW THE DOUGLAS TRAGEDY FINE FLOWERS I' THE VALLEY THE GAY GOSS-HAWK YOUNG REDIN WILLIE AND MAY MARGARET YOUNG BEICHAN GILDEROY BONNY BARBARA ALLAN THE GARDENER ETIN THE FORESTER LAMKIN HUGH OF LINCOLN FAIR ANNIE THE LAIRD O' DRUM LIZIE LINDSAY KATHARINE JANFARIE GLENLOGIE GET UP AND BAR THE DOOR THE LAWLANDS O' HOLLAND THE TWA CORBIES HELEN OF KIRCONNELL WALY WALY LORD RONALD EDWARD, EDWARD
INTRODUCTION
One of the vexed questions of criticism regarding these refrains is whether they were rendered in alternation with the narrative verses or as a continuous under-song. Early observers of Indian dances have noted that, while one leaping savage after another improvised a simple strain or two, the whole dancing company kept up a guttural cadence of "Heh, heh, heh!" or "Aw, aw, aw!" which served the office of musical accompaniment. This choral iteration of rhythmic syllables, still hinted in the refrain, but only hinted, is believed to be the original element of poetry.
In course of time, however, was evolved the individual singer. In the earlier stages of society, song was undoubtedly a common gift, and every normal member of the community bore his part in the recital of the heroic deeds that ordinarily formed the subject of these primeval lays. Were it the praise of a god, of a feasting champion, or of a slain comrade, the natural utterance was narrative. Later on, the more fluent and inventive improvisers came to the front, and finally the professional bard appeared. Somewhere in the process, too, the burden may have shifted its part from under-song to alternating chorus, thus allowing the soloist opportunity for rest and recollection.
"Tatter'd and jagged, Rudely raine-beaten, Rusty and moth-eaten,"
into the exquisite lyrical measures of Italy; while the mysteries and miracle-plays, also of Continental impulse, were striving to do God service by impressing the Scripture stories upon their rustic audiences,--the ballads were being sung and told from Scottish loch to English lowland, in hamlet and in hall. Heartily enjoyed in the baronial castle, scandalously well known in the monastery, they were dearest to the peasants.
"Lewd peple loven tales olde; Swiche thinges can they wel report and holde."
The Roumanians still have their lute-players; old people in Galway still remember the last of their wandering folk-bards; but the Ettrick Shepherd, a century ago, had to call upon imagination for the picture of
"Each Caledonian minstrel true, Dressed in his plaid and bonnet blue, With harp across his shoulders slung, And music murmuring round his tongue."
Fearless children of nature these strolling poets were, even as the songs they sang.
"Little recked they, our bards of old, Of autumn's showers, or winter's cold. Sound slept they on the 'nighted hill, Lulled by the winds, or bubbling rill, Curtained within the winter cloud, The heath their couch, the sky their shroud; Yet theirs the strains that touch the heart,-- Bold, rapid, wild, and void of art."
Sir Walter Scott sums up this famous quarrel with his characteristic good-humor. "The debate," he says, "resembles the apologue of the gold and silver shield. Dr. Percy looked on the minstrel in the palmy and exalted state to which, no doubt, many were elevated by their talents, like those who possess excellence in the fine arts in the present day; and Ritson considered the reverse of the medal, when the poor and wandering gleeman was glad to purchase his bread by singing his ballads at the ale-house, wearing a fantastic habit, and latterly sinking into a mere crowder upon an untuned fiddle, accompanying his rude strains with a ruder ditty, the helpless associate of drunken revellers, and marvellously afraid of the constable and parish beadle."
In the latter half of that century, however, occurred the great event in the history of our ballad literature. A country clergyman of a literary turn of mind, resident in the north of England, being on a visit to his "worthy friend, Humphrey Pitt, Esq., then living at Shiffnal in Shropshire," had the glorious good luck to hit upon an old folio manuscript of ballads and romances. "I saw it," writes Percy, "lying dirty on the floor under a Bureau in ye Parlour; being used by the Maids to light the fire."
Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry. 1765.
Herd's Ancient and Modern Scottish Songs, Heroic Ballads, etc. 1769.
Ritson's Ancient Popular Poetry. 1791.
Ritson's Ancient Songs and Ballads. 1792.
Ritson's Robin Hood. 1795.
Scott's Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border. 1802-1803.
Jamieson's Popular Ballads and Songs. 1806.
Finlay's Scottish Historical and Romantic Ballads. 1808.
Sharpe's Ballad Book. 1824.
Maidment's North Countrie Garland. 1824.
Kinloch's Ancient Scottish Ballads. 1827.
Motherwell's Minstrelsy, Ancient and Modern. 1827.
Buchan's Ancient Ballads and Songs of the North of Scotland. 1828.
Chambers' Scottish Ballads. 1829.
Whitelaw's Book of Scottish Ballads. 1845.
Child's English and Scottish Ballads. 1857-1858.
Aytoun's Ballads of Scotland. 1858.
Maidment's Scottish Ballads and Songs. 1868.
Bishop Percy's Folio Manuscript. 1868.
Child's English and Scottish Popular Ballads . 1882-98.
A WORD WITH THE TEACHER.
The methods of ballad-work in the class-room must of course vary with the amount of time at disposal, the extent of library privilege, and the attainment of the students. Where the requisite books are at hand, it may be found a profitable exercise to commit a ballad to each member of the class, who shall hunt down the various English versions, and, as far as his power reaches, the foreign equivalents. But specific topical study can be put to advantage on the ballads themselves, the fifty collected here furnishing abundant data for discussion and illustration in regard to such subjects as the following:--
/ Teutonic. Ballad Language | Dialectic. Idiomatic.
/ / Description. / Ballad Stanza | Peculiar Fitness. | Variations. | Ballad Music | / Metre. | Irregularities in | Accent. | Rhyme. Significance of Irregularities.
/ Introduction. / Dramatic Element. Ballad Structure | Involution of Plot. Proportion of Element. Conclusion.
/ Government. Early English and Scottish | Family. Life as reflected in the | Employments. Ballads | Pastimes. Manners.
Early English and Scottish / Aspirations. Character as reflected | Principles. in the Ballads Tastes.
Democracy in the Ballads.
Nature in the Ballads.
Color in the Ballads.
History and Science in the Ballads.
Manhood in the Ballads.
Womanhood in the Ballads.
Childhood in the Ballads.
Standards of Morality in the Ballads.
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