rved
by tradition, and remains independent of the criteria applied
instinctively and unconsciously to artistic compositions. The community
is one at heart, one in mind, one in method of expression. Tales are
recited, verses chanted, and the singer of a clan makes his version of a
popular story. Simultaneously other singers, it may be of other clans of
the same race, or of another race altogether, elaborate their versions
of the common theme. Meanwhile the first singer has again recited or
chanted his ballad, and, having forgotten the exact wording, has altered
it, and perhaps introduced improvements. The same happens in the other
cases. The various audiences carry away as much as they can remember,
and recite their versions, again with individual omissions, alterations,
and additions. Thus, by ever-widening circles, the tale is distributed
in countless forms over an unlimited area. The elements of the story
remain, wholly or in part, while the literary clothing is altered
according to the 'taste and fancy' of the reciter. The lore is now
traditional, whether it be in prose, as Maerchen, or in verse, as ballad.
And so it remains in oral circulation--and therefore still liable to
variation--until it is written down or printed. It is left 'masterless,'
unsigned; for of the original author's composition, may be, only a word
or two remains. It has passed through many mouths, and has been made
over countless times. But once written down it ceases _virum volitare
per ora_; the invention of printing has spoiled the powers of man's
memory.

We can now take up the tale at the fifteenth century; let us henceforth
confine our attention to England. It is agreed on all sides that the
fifteenth century was the period when, in England at least, the ballads
first became a prominent feature. Of historical ballads, _The Hunting of
the Cheviot_ was probably composed as early as 1400 or thereabouts. The
romances contemporaneously underwent a change, and took on a form nearer
to that of the ballad. Whatever may be the date of the origin of the
subject-matter, the literary clothing--language, mode of expression,
colour--of no ballad, as we now have it, is much, earlier than 1400. The
only possible exceptions to this statement are one or two of the Robin
Hood ballads--attributed to the thirteenth century by Professor Child,
but _adhuc sub judice_--and a ballad of sacred legend--_Judas_--which
exists in a thirteenth-century manuscript in the li