Child Ballads

Conversely, ballads classified separately may contain turns of phrase, and even entire verses, that are identical.

The editorial history of Child's publication received a monograph study by Mary Ellen Brown in 2011.

The first edition of Child's book was, once complete, The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, ed.

[1]0 Corrected edition of The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, five volumes (Northfield, Minnesota: Loomis House Press, 2002-2011).

Some of the topics and other features characteristic enough of Child Ballads to be considered Child Ballad motifs are these: romance, enchantment, devotion, determination, obsession, jealousy, forbidden love, insanity, hallucination, uncertainty of one's sanity, the ease with which the truth can be suppressed temporarily, supernatural experiences, supernatural deeds, half-human creatures, teenagers, family strife, the boldness of outlaws, abuse of authority, betting, lust, death, karma, punishment, sin, morality, vanity, folly, dignity, nobility, honor, loyalty, dishonor, riddles, historical events, omens, fate, trust, shock, deception, disguise, treachery, disappointment, revenge, violence, murder, cruelty, combat, courage, escape, exile, rescue, forgiveness, being tested, human weaknesses, and folk heroes.

[citation needed] On one extreme, some Child Ballads recount identifiable historical people, in known events, embellished for dramatic effect.

Burl Ives's 1949 album, The Return of the Wayfaring Stranger, for example, includes two: "Lord Randall" and "The Divil and the Farmer".

[12] In 1960 John Jacob Niles published The Ballad Book of John Jacob Niles, in which he connects folk songs which he collected throughout the southern United States and Appalachia in the early 20th century to the Child Ballads.

Joan Baez sang ten Child ballads distributed among her first five albums, the liner notes of which identified them as such.

A rendition of child ballad 155 ("Fatal Flower Garden") appears on Andrew Bird's The Swimming Hour.

In 2003 English folk singer June Tabor recorded the album An Echo of Hooves consisting entirely of Child ballads (210, 212, 161, 195, 191, 106, 74, 215, 88, 20, 58).

[14] Child ballad 95, The Maid Freed from the Gallows has appeared in several recordings of blues and rock bands, notably by Lead Belly as "Gallis Pole" and on the album Led Zeppelin III under the name "Gallows Pole."

Child ballads also occasionally occur in the work of musical groups not usually associated with folk material, such as Ween's recording of "The Unquiet Grave" (Child 78) under the title "Cold Blows the Wind" and versions of "Barbara Allen" (Child 84) recorded by the Everly Brothers, Art Garfunkel, and (on the soundtrack of the 2004 film A Love Song for Bobby Long) John Travolta.

Virginia Woolf references Child Ballad number 173 "Mary Hamilton" in A Room of One's Own.