as well known as the scoffs of the hard-hitting Joseph Ritson, who
contemptuously dismissed Percy's theories,[4] and refused to believe any
ballad to be of earlier origin than the reign of Elizabeth. Sir Walter
Scott was quite ready to accept the ballads as the productions of the
minstrels, either as 'the occasional effusions of some self-taught
bard,' or as abridged from the tales of tradition after the days when,
as Alfred de Musset says, 'our old romances spread their wings of gold
towards the enchanted world.'

[Footnote 4: 'The truth really lay between the two, for neither
appreciated the wide variety covered by a common name' (_The
Mediaeval Stage_, E. K. Chambers, 1903). See especially chapters iii.
and iv. of this work for an admirably complete and illuminating
account of minstrelsy.]

This brings us nearer to our own day. The argument is not closed,
although we can discern offers of concession from either side. Svend
Grundtvig, editor of the enormous collection of Danish ballads,
distinguished the ballad from all forms of artistic literature, and
would have the artist left out of sight; Nyrop and the Scandinavian
scholars, on the other hand, entirely gave up the notion of communal
authorship. Howbeit, the trend of modern criticism,[5] on the whole, is
towards a common belief regarding most ballads, which may be stated
again, in Professor Child's words: 'Though a man and not a people has
composed them, still the author counts for nothing, and it is not by
mere accident, but with the best reason, that they have come down to us
anonymous.'

[Footnote 5: For the most recent discussions, see Bibliography,
p. lii.]

+III. The Growth of Ballads.+

Let us then picture, however vaguely and uncertainly, the growth of a
ballad. It is well known that the folklores of the various races of the
world exhibit common features, and that the beliefs, superstitions,
tales, even conventionalities of expression, of one race, are found to
present constant and remarkable similarities to those of another.
Whether these similarities are to be held mere coincidences, or whether
they are to be explained by the theory of a common ancestry in the
cradle of the world, is a side-issue into which I do not intend to
enter. Suffice it that the fact is true, especially of the peoples who
speak the Indo-European tongues. The lore which has for its foundation
permanent and universal acceptance in the hearts of mankind is prese