There can be no universal theory of the origin of ballads; each ballad must be examined by itself before we can say whether it is a popularized shape of a literary romance, or a versified "Märchen" worked over by many hands in many ages, or a mere mythical news-letter, like "King James and Brown"; or the work, like "Otterburne," of a humbler poet than the minstrels of the Stanleys, but a better poet; or one whose work has been improved by the modifications of later singers; or whether the thing is a dance song, contributed to by each dancer in turn; or a brief and beautiful lament like "The Bonny Earl o' Murray". The best traditional ballads have the colour and fragrance of wild flowers.
Curious and very ancient traits of popular usages may be gathered from the songs of merrymaking, for example in the songs of Ivy, the badge of the women, and of Holly, the badge of the men. Girls and lads bring ivy and holly into halls and a fight ensues, the girls are thrust out into the cold.
"Nay, nay Ivy it may not be, I wis,
For Holly must have mastery, as the manner is."
The girls burned the "Holly boy" of the men, the men burned the "Ivy maid" of the girls. This ancient feud of the sexes, and of their patron birds, exists among the tribes of South-Eastern Australia, the men killing the bird of the women, the women the bird of the men, and an amorous kind of combat follows.
The old ballad of "Chevy Chace," a form of the older ballad on the battle of Otterburn (1388) was warmly praised by Sir Philip Sidney. Later Addison took delight in ballads: they began to be collected and printed in volumes towards the end of the seventeenth and early in the eighteenth century. In 1765 Bishop Percy printed many ballads and other early poems from a manuscript, the "Folio" which he found, tattered and mutilated, in the house of a friend. Percy, in his "Reliques," omitted, altered and modernized the contents of the Folio, but it was very popular. In 1803 and later Sir Walter Scott published "The Border Minstrelsy," containing many excellent old ballads, in places modified by himself, from manuscripts, recitations, and printed copies. It is in "The Minstrelsy" that we find the "classical" versions of the ballads; there are many other collections.
We have put into smaller type a short account of the probable origins and development of the ballad, because a study of these subjects is mainly based on folk-lore and on research into the unwritten poetry of backward races. The reader of poetry who is not concerned about an obscure and difficult subject, is best advised if he takes up Scott's "Border Minstrelsy" and reads it "for human pleasure". He will find endless variety of strong, simple, passionate poetry, seldom made difficult by obsolete words, for the ballads are, however old, far less Scots in language than the poems of Burns. Another good collection is the abridgement by Professor Kittredge, of the late Professor Child's vast collection of ballads in five volumes, a work indispensable to the special student.
Though it is not a ballad, the most beautiful and loyal piece of masterless poetry of this age is "The Nut Brown Maid," already old when it was published in 1502. This is a defence of woman's faithfulness in love, the maid will follow her outlawed lover to the greenwood, ay, even if he have another lady there. Her lover replies:—
Lo yet, before, ye must do more,
Yf ye wyll go with me:
As cut your here up by your ere,
Your kyrtel by the kne;
With bowe in hande, for to withstande
Your enemyes, yf nede be.
Scott's song, "Greta Banks," in "Rokeby," repeats the sentiment and metre of this beautiful poem, with its music and mastery of changing refrains and various measures. Some of the carols too, such as "I sing of a Maid," are the earliest notes in the bird-like music of the lyrists under Elizabeth and Charles I.