The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Bundle of Ballads, by Various

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Title: A Bundle of Ballads

Author: Various

Editor: Henry Morley

Posting Date: December 8, 2008 [EBook #2831]
Release Date: September, 2001

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A BUNDLE OF BALLADS ***

Produced by Les Bowler

A BUNDLE OF BALLADS

Edited By Henry Morley

CONTENTS.

INTRODUCTION
CHEVY CHASE
CHEVY CHASE (the later version)
THE NUT-BROWN MAID
ADAM BELL, CLYM OF THE CLOUGH, AND WILLIAM OF CLOUDESLIE
BINNORIE
KING COPHETUA AND THE BEGGAR MAID
TAKE THY OLD CLOAK ABOUT THEE
WILLOW, WILLOW, WILLOW
THE LITTLE WEE MAN
THE SPANISH LADY'S LOVE
EDWARD, EDWARD
ROBIN HOOD
KING EDWARD IV. AND THE TANNER OF TAMWORTH
SIR PATRICK SPENS
EDOM O' GORDON
THE CHILDREN IN THE WOOD
THE BEGGAR'S DAUGHTER OF BETHNAL GREEN
THE BAILIFF'S DAUGHTER OF ISLINGTON
BARBARA ALLEN'S CRUELTY
SWEET WILLIAM'S GHOST
THE BRAES O' YARROW
KEMP OWYNE
O'ER THE WATER TO CHARLIE
ADMIRAL HOSIER'S GHOST
JEMMY DAWSON
WILLIAM AND MARGARET
ELFINLAND WOOD
CASABIANCA
AULD ROBIN GRAY
GLOSSARY

INTRODUCTION BY THE EDITOR.

Recitation with dramatic energy by men whose business it was to travel
from one great house to another and delight the people by the way,
was usual among us from the first. The scop invented and the glee-man
recited heroic legends and other tales to our Anglo-Saxon forefathers.
These were followed by the minstrels and other tellers of tales written
for the people. They frequented fairs and merrymakings, spreading the
knowledge not only of tales in prose or ballad form, but of appeals also
to public sympathy from social reformers.

As late as the year 1822, Allan Cunningham, in publishing a collection
of "Traditional Tales of the English and Scottish Peasantry," spoke from
his own recollection of itinerant story-tellers who were welcomed in the
houses of the peasantry and earned a living by their craft.

The earliest story-telling was in recitative. When th