1.
Ballad
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A ballad /ˈbæləd/ is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads derive from the medieval French chanson balladée or ballade, which were originally danced songs, Ballads were particularly characteristic of the popular poetry and song of the British Isles from the later medieval period until the 19th century. They were widely used across Europe, and later in the Americas, Australia, Ballads are 13 lines with an ABABBCBC form, consisting of couplets of rhymed verse, each of 14 syllables. Many ballads were written and sold as single sheet broadsides, the form was often used by poets and composers from the 18th century onwards to produce lyrical ballads. In the later 19th century, the took on the meaning of a slow form of popular love song and is now often used for any love song. The ballad derives its name from medieval French dance songs or ballares, from which ballet is also derived, as a narrative song, their theme and function may originate from Scandinavian and Germanic traditions of storytelling that can be seen in poems such as Beowulf. Musically they were influenced by the Minnesinger, the earliest example of a recognizable ballad in form in England is Judas in a 13th-century manuscript. This means that the two words, ballad and ballet, are derived from the French language. Ballads were originally written to accompany dances, and so were composed in couplets with refrains in alternate lines and these refrains would have been sung by the dancers in time with the dance. Most northern and west European ballads are written in ballad stanzas or quatrains of alternating lines of iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter, known as ballad meter. Usually, only the second and fourth line of a quatrain are rhymed, there is considerable variation on this pattern in almost every respect, including length, number of lines and rhyming scheme, making the strict definition of a ballad extremely difficult. Ballads usually use the dialect of the people and are heavily influenced by the region in which they originate. Scottish ballads in particular are distinctively un-English, even showing some pre-Christian influences in the inclusion of elements such as the fairies in the Scottish ballad Tam Lin. The ballads do not have any known author or correct version, instead, having passed down mainly by oral tradition since the Middle Ages. The ballads remained a tradition until the increased interest in folk songs in the 18th century led collectors such as Bishop Thomas Percy to publish volumes of popular ballads. In all traditions most ballads are narrative in nature, with a story, often concise, and rely on imagery, rather than description. Themes concerning rural laborers and their sexuality are common, and there are many ballads based on the Robin Hood legend. Another common feature of ballads is repetition, sometimes of fourth lines in succeeding stanzas, as a refrain, sometimes of third and fourth lines of a stanza and sometimes of entire stanzas
2.
Child Ballad
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The Child Ballads are 305 traditional ballads from England and Scotland, and their American variants, anthologized by Francis James Child during the second half of the 19th century. Their lyrics and Childs studies of them were published as the 2, the tunes of most of the ballads were collected and published by Bertrand Harris Bronson in and around the 1960s. There were also comprehensive ballad collections from other countries, Child modelled his work on Svend Grundtvigs Danmarks gamle Folkeviser, classifying and numbering the ballads and noting different versions, which were placed side by side to aid comparison. As a result, one Child number may cover several ballads, conversely, ballads classified separately may contain turns of phrase, and even entire verses, that are identical. The ballads vary in age, for instance, the manuscript of Judas dates to the thirteenth century, the majority of the ballads, however, date to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Although some are claimed to have very ancient influences, only a handful can be traced to before 1600. Moreover, few of the tunes collected are as old as the words, nevertheless, Childs collection was far more comprehensive than any previous collection of ballads in English. Many of Childs ballads were obtained from printed broadsides, but he distinguished the traditional ballads that interested him from later broadside ballads. As Child died before writing a commentary on his work, it is exactly how and why he selected some ballads. Child Ballads are generally heavier and darker than is usual for ballads, on one extreme, some Child Ballads recount identifiable historical people, in known events, embellished for dramatic effect. On the other, some differ from fairy tales solely by their songs and in verse. A large part of the collection is about Robin Hood, some are about King Arthur, a few of the ballads are rather bawdy. The editorial history of Childs publication received a study by Mary Ellen Brown in 2011. In 1860, Child published a collection entitled English and Scottish Ballads, generally presenting just one variant of each ballad, via Little, Brown. However, as a scholarly edition this was superseded by his later, the first edition of Childs book was, once complete, The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, ed. by Francis James Child,5 vols. It was printed in one thousand copies, and actually issued in ten parts, the final title pages for each of the five volumes, printed in red and black, were issued with part 10. Part 10 actually emerged after Childs death, and was edited by George Lyman Kittredge, the book was reprinted, this time physically in three volumes, in 1957 by the New York-based Folklore Press, in association with the Pageant Book Company. It was reprinted again in 1965 in New York by Dover, this time with an essay by Walter Morris Hart entitled Professor Child, many Child Ballads have subsequently appeared in contemporary music recordings
3.
Arthur Rackham
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Arthur Rackham was an English book illustrator. Rackham was born in Lewisham, then part of Kent as one of 12 children. In 1884, at the age of 17, he was sent on a voyage to Australia to improve his fragile health. At the age of 18, he worked as a clerk at the Westminster Fire Office, in 1892, he left his job and started working for the Westminster Budget as a reporter and illustrator. Book illustrating then became Rackhams career for the rest of his life and this was developed further through the austere years of the Boer War with regular contributions to childrens periodicals such as Little Folks and Cassells Magazine. In 1901 he moved to Wychcombe Studios near Haverstock Hill, edith suffered a miscarriage in 1904, but the couple had one daughter, Barbara, in 1908. M. Barries Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, published by Hodder & Stoughton. Income from the books was greatly augmented by annual exhibitions of the artwork at the Leicester Galleries, Rackham won a gold medal at the Milan International Exhibition in 1906 and another one at the Barcelona International Exposition in 1912. His works were included in exhibitions, including one at the Louvre in Paris in 1914. From 1906 the family lived in Chalcot Gardens, near Haverstock Hill, until moving from London to Houghton, in 1929 the family settled into a newly built property in Limpsfield, Surrey. Arthur Rackham died in 1939 of cancer at his home, during that period, there was a strong market for high quality illustrated books which typically were given as Christmas gifts. Many of Rackhams books were produced in a de luxe limited edition, often vellum bound and sometimes signed, as well as a larger and this was often followed by a more modestly presented octavo edition in subsequent years for particularly popular books. The onset of the war in 1914 curtailed the market for such quality books, arthur Rackhams works have become very popular since his death, both in North America and Britain. His images have been used by the greeting card industry. His original drawings and paintings are keenly sought at the international art auction houses. Rackhams illustrations were based on robust pen and India ink drawings. He would first lightly block in shapes and details of the drawing with a soft pencil, over this he would then carefully work in lines of pen and India ink, removing the pencil traces after the drawing had begun to take form. For colour pictures, he would begin painting by building up multiple thin washes of watercolour creating translucent tints. He would also go on to expand the use of cuts in illustration work, particularly in the period after the First World War, as exemplified by his Sleeping Beauty
4.
Francis James Child
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Francis James Child was an American scholar, educator, and folklorist, best known today for his collection of English and Scottish ballads now known as the Child Ballads. Child was Boylston professor of rhetoric and oratory at Harvard University, in 1876 he was named Harvards first Professor of English, a position which allowed him to focus on academic research. It was during this time that he work on the Child Ballads. The Child Ballads were published in five volumes between 1882 and 1898, while Child was primarily a literary scholar with little interest in the music of the ballads, his work became a major contribution to the study of English-language folk music. Francis James Child was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the family was poor, but thanks to the city of Bostons system of free public schools, the boy was educated at the Bostons Grammar and English High Schools. At Harvard, Frank excelled in all classes and also read widely outside his studies for his own pleasure and he was graduated in 1846, topping his class in all subjects and was chosen Class Orator by his graduating class, who received his valedictory speech with tumultuous applause. Upon graduation Child was appointed tutor in mathematics at Harvard and in 1848 was transferred to a tutorship in history, political economy, in 1848, Child published a critically annotated edition of Four Old Plays of the early English Renaissance. There were then no graduate schools in America, but a loan from a benefactor, bowditch, to whom the book was dedicated, enabled Child to take a leave of absence from his teaching duties to pursue his studies in Germany. In 1851, at the age of 26, Child succeeded Edward T, channing as Harvards Boylston Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory, a position he held until Adams Sherman Hill was appointed to the professorship in 1876. Harvard had at time a enrollment of 382 undergraduates and a faculty of 14, including the president of the University. As a mathematician, wrote folklore scholar David E, the volumes on the works of Edmund Spenser and the English and Scottish Ballads, Child edited himself. Child planned an edition of the works of Chaucer, as well. He soon realized that this could not be done, however, Childs linguistic researches are largely responsible for how Chaucerian grammar, pronunciation, and scansion are now generally understood. Childs largest undertaking, however, grew out of the original English and Scottish Ballads volume in his British Poets series, the material for this volume was mostly derived from texts in previously published books. Child and Furnivall then went on to found The Ballad Society, with a view to publishing other important early ballad collections, thereafter, Child devoted himself to the comparative study of British vernacular ballads, using methods adopted from historical comparative philology to arrive at the earliest attested versions. Child considered that folk ballads came from a more time in the past when society was not so rigidly segregated into classes. He conceived the people as comprising all the classes of society, rich, middle, and poor, although Child concentrated his collections on manuscript texts with a view to determining their chronology, he also gave a sedulous but conservative hearing to popular versions still surviving. 1–12, was the model for Childs resulting canonical five-volume edition of some 305 English and Scottish ballads, worked and overworked to the last, he died in Boston after completing his task – apart from a planned general introduction and bibliography
5.
Billy Blind
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Billy Blind, Billy Blin, Billy Blynde, Billie Blin, or Belly Blin is an English and Lowland Scottish household spirit, much like a brownie. He appears, however, only in ballads, where it frequently advises the characters. In Child Ballad no 5c, Gil Brenton, it is Billy Blind that advises the hero that his bride is not the woman beside him, who is a virgin, but she is hiding in her bower and already pregnant. In Child Ballad no 6, Willies Lady, Willies wife has been in labour and can not deliver because Willies mother, Billy Blind advises Willie to make a wax figure of a baby and invite his mother to the christening. In her rage, the demands to know how all her magic was undone, listing all the things shes done. In Child Ballad no 53C, Young Bekie, he advises Burd Isobel that Young Bekie is about to another bride. In Child Ballad no 110, The Knight and the Shepherds Daughter, he appears in many of the variants to reveal the true births of the marrying couple, much higher than was apparent. In modern fantasy, the Billy Blind appears in Peter S. Beagles Tamsin, where his main characteristic is constantly to give advice
6.
False hero
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The False hero is a stock character in fairy tales, and sometimes also in ballads. The character appears near the end of a story in order to claim to be the hero or heroine and is, therefore, the false hero presents some claim to the position. By testing, it is revealed that the claims are false, the false hero is usually punished, and the true hero put in his place. Vladimir Propp identified it as one of the eight roles he found in an analysis of Russian folktales, in some tales, the false hero appears early, and constitutes the main obstacle to the hero. In most of the tales that use this figure, the hero is the final obstacle to the heros happiness. Other tales have characters take the hero or heroines place without claiming to be the original. The false bride fails the test when the heroine, not plagued with greed, refuses to trade the bride for gold or treasure, the false brides greed draws her to agree, other tales including this are Brother and Sister and The Wonderful Birch. Hans Christian Andersens literary tale The Little Mermaid makes a variation not usually found in more traditional fairytales, the Temple Girl fits the above prototype, since she gets the credit for saving the Princes life and wins his love
7.
The Types of the Scandinavian Medieval Ballad
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The Types of the Scandinavian Medieval Ballad, A Descriptive Catalogue is the designation for a cataloguing system for Scandinavian ballads. It attempts to classify all specimens of traditional ballads known in one of more of the Scandinavian languages, cognate ballads are assigned the same TSB No. Such as A38, A50, or A65, the TSB divides its list of types into six groups, as below. The division essentially follows the one by A. I, arwidsson, and Svend Grundtvigs original division in Danmarks gamle folkeviser, however, many of the ballads Grundtvig placed in group C have been reclassified. The number of types in each group in the second printed edition of TSB from 1978 is given within parentheses. Since then, more types have been added to group F, an example is given in, where the description of the type A38, Den talende strængeleg/De två systrarna - The Two Sisters is quoted. Almost all of the types given in the Danish, Faroese, Icelandic. Norsk visearkiv, which is responsible for the corresponding Norwegian ballad project, has decided to employ the TSB classification directly, many Scandinavian ballad types are also easily recognised in ballad collections from other languages. E. g. the aforementioned type TSB A38 corresponds to Child 10
