Notes on Ballad Origins
by A. Lang
Folklore, Vol. 14, No. 2 (Jun. 24, 1903), pp. 147-161
NOTES ON BALLAD ORIGINS.
BY A. LANG, M.A., L L. D., &C.
(Read at Meeting, 25th March, 1903.)
FOR some reason the problems of the origin and diffusion of Ballads (by which brief traditional romantic narrative poems are here especially meant), have not much occupied the Folk-Lore Society. I now submit some remarks, suggested by a recent publication. Even the slight amount of discussion of the theme in England is enough to show that there are two ways of accounting for the wide diffusion, in Europe, of popular narrative poems on similar romantic plots. Thus Mr. T. F. Henderson and Mr. Courthope appear to hold that such ballads are degraded versions of literary mediaeval romances; cut down, vulgarises, and adapted to the tastes of the less cultivated classes. On the other hand, while admitting that certain ballads are of this origin, I maintain that many others are the work of popular rhymers, often dealing with themes also current in Marchen of great
antiquity, and not borrowing from literary sources. But my position does not seem to be clearly understood by the advocates of the other system.
In his "Prefatory Note" to his new and excellent edition of The Border Minstrelsy, [1] Mr. T. F. Henderson has remarks on what may be called the Folklore Theory of popular old narrative ballads, and he honours me by various references to my opinions. As the subject was first approached by me thirty years ago, my opinions have naturally varied in some degree. I do not know that I ever said that ballads were " of communal origin." Where popular poetry is the work of collaborators in improvisation, even then each individual contributes his or her quota. Again, the recurrent formulae must have been invented by some persons at some time, though now they are public property. Once more, in ballads with many variants (as The Queen's
Marie), no individual author of any one existing variant is the author of the whole of any such extant version. There has, certainly, been unconscious popular collaboration, nor do we know what the first ballad on the subject was like.
That poetry, even among the Australian blacks, is by "some gifted individual" (inspired by the Mrarts or Boilyas, or spirits, or by Pundjel himself), we know from Mr. Howitt's essay on these unprofessional makers.[2] We also know that the song becomes mixed and modified, as it passes from tribe to tribe, so that, in a given piece, the "gifted individual" might at last hardly recognise his own original.
I am not aware that I myself "formerly scouted the notion that traditional ballads [in their original form] could be the work of individual balladists," as Mr. Henderson says. But, say in the case of The Queen's Marie, and many other ballads, the variants which we have are no longer, I repeat, the original work of any individual: they are composite. In such instances I can say, as in 1875 (Encyc. Brit., " Ballads "), " no one any longer attributes them to this or that author, or to this or that date."
Even in historical ballads, as Kinmont Willie, we know
the date of the event (1596), but the poem is a composite in
which Scott has handled traditional materials as he pleased.
We do not know how the original ballad ran. As to the
gifted individuals who made such ballads, we have only
Bishop Lesley's evidence (circ. 1570). "Ballads (cantzones)
about the deeds of their ancestors, and ingenious forays
they "-the Borderers-" compose themselves," that is, the
Borderers were their own ballad-makers. In this sense I
think we may call the origin of these Border ballads "popular," not literary or professional. In the course of
oral tradition changes of all kinds, for good or bad, were
certain to be made. The Border collaborated in our extant
versions. I do not here speak of political ballads, made to be
printed, as many were, and still preserved in their original
shape. Many ballads, many savage poems, are "popular,"
are, as they stand, the composite work of many persons, on
an earlier canvas. Where, in the case of savages, there
are no distinctions of rank, no professional poets, the songs
are certainly the work of "the people,"-not of the people
all shouting at once of course! There, there is nothing but
"people "-and individuals of the people make the Dirges
of Corsica, and the touching songs of the Arapahoe " Ghost
Dance." Examples of these may cling to the memory of
the listeners, who, in repeating them, are almost certain to
modify them, in fact to collaborate. In a society like that
of the South Pacific, when an individual cannot make his
own verses for " the Death Talk," he gets somebody more
gifted to help him, and we know many names of old Polynesian
poets. Professionalism is beginning.[3] In Australian
legends, the heroes and heroines of each adventure sing
words of their own in moments of excitement; they are
their own poets. Professional or semi-professional poets
naturally increase with the advance of society, and the
division of labour; and the dirge-singers of Corsica may be
as it happens, amateur or professional mourners. In savage
society, the medicine-man may make his own magical
chants, or may know traditional versions. If such poetry
does not spring "from the heart of the people," where
there is nothing but " people," I know not whence it springs.
But this is not a denial of individual authorship by members
of the people, in the first instance, before the collaboration
of reciters begins. Even in deliberately collaborative verse,
each man or woman, as I have said, offers a quota, from
memory or from fancy, and, if that fancy is not "popular,"
what is popular ?
Mr. Henderson twits me with speaking of " a monotonous
taunting song of the Scottish maidens," as " a rural ballad"
on Bannockburn. It was obviously not a narrative poem:
I accept the correction. But Barbour, in the fourteenth
century, as Scott remarks, "thinks it unnecessary to
rehearse the account of a victory gained in Eskdale over
the English, because
"Whasa like, they may her
Young women, when thai will play,
Syng it amang thaim ilk day."
The Bruce. Book xvi.
This was a narrative ballad, certainly, for it told the story
of a Border battle. Who made the ballad? Ipsi confingunt,
" they compose their ballads themselves," says Lesley, in
the sixteenth century: he speaks of no professional composers.
Hume of Godscroft in the sixteenth century quotes
one verse of an " old song" on the slaying (1353) of the
Knight of Liddesdale. May I venture to infer that a song
on such an event was probably made, originally, when the
tragedy was fresh in the popular memory? But, by Godscroft's
time (and he was an active conspirator in 1584), one
verse ran thus:
" The Countess of Douglas out of her bower she came,
And loudly there that she did call,
'It is for the Lord of Liddesdale
That I let all these tears down fall.' "
There was, I think, no Earl or Countess of Douglas in
1353, and the verse is not, perhaps, in the style of the
fourteenth century. The "old song," by the time it
reached Godscroft, had been altered by oral traditionthe
original song, probably by an individual of the
fourteenth century, was no longer, I imagine, to be found.
What survived was composite and relatively modern.
In 1875, when Professor Child' sgreat collection of materials
was still unpublished, I wrote that "the birth of the ballad, from the lips and the heart of the people, may be contrasted
with the origin of an artistic poetry in the demand of an
aristocracy for a separate epic literature," &c. But I conceive
that, even in 1875, I did not suppose that the " people "
simultaneously and automatically bellowed out this or that
new ballad. If Mr. Henderson credits me with that opinion,
I disclaim it. When I went on, in 1875, to say that " all
ballad poetry sprang from the same primitive custom of
dance, accompanied by improvised song, which still exists
in Greece and Russia, and even in valleys of the Pyrenees,"
I did not discriminate, but followed the derivation of
" ballad" from old French baller, "to dance," originally
meaning a song sung to the rhythmic movement of a
dancing chorus. It is a long while since I wrote the brief
and insufficiently-informed article of 1875-
All our extant traditional narrative ballads were not, of
course, made in this way, out of improvisations in the dance.
Perhaps few, if any, were. That songs are made, and have
been made in this way, in many regions, each song having
its refrain, is proved beyond doubt by Professor Gummere
(The Beginnings of Poetry, 19o02). I am not certain that
any of our traditional and extant ballads had this origin.
But the word "ballad "-if the derivation be correctwas
first applied to such improvisations, before the now
remote date when the French used ballade for a peculiarly
artificial form of literary versification. The term "ballad"
in 1568, was even used to designate the irregular Casket
Sonnets attributed to Mary Stuart.
In Chambers's Cyclopaedia of English Literature (1901),
I wrote in a manner, I hope, more discreet than in 1875.
Mr. Henderson does not quote this essay, at least he gives
no reference to it. Mr. Henderson does say, that in my
opinion " as a general rule-for a general rule he will have
it to be-ballads and popular tales, between which he draws
little or no distinction, are the creation of 'the folk-fancy'
(regarding the exact meaning of which phrase Mr. Lang's statements are variable), and are not only older than the
mediaeval romances, but must have existed, many of them
that now survive, millions of years before any existing
human records." Where do I say that many extant ballads
arose, and descend to us, from a period " millions of years
anterior," say, to cuneiform and hieroglyphic records ? No
reference is given for this portentous averment of mine.
What I do say is what, perhaps, no folklorist denies.
Many ballads are versified Mdrchen, or many Mdrchen
are ballads done into prose, or both descend from popular
tales partly in prose, partly in verse, and the Miirchen are
very old and widely diffused.
Mr. Leland writes, in the preface to his and Professor
Dyneley Prince's Kuloskap the Master (1902), that, in Italy,
he used to be asked whether he preferred to have " a fairy
tale chanted or repeated as prose." He might take it as a
ballad, or as a Mdiirchen. We have ballads in alternate
prose or verse, as Motherwell found, and Jameson found one
in Lochaber and Ardnamurchan, Celtic districts. The
Algonkin " sagas, or legends, or traditions were, in fact,
all songs," says Mr. Leland. In short, romantic traditional
ballads, and prose Mirchen are closely inter-related. Prose
and verse are intertwined in old Gaelic Lays, says Islay
(Popular Tales of the West Highlands, iv., 164, 165).
Again, the stock situations and ideas in Mdrchen, and in
the analogous ballads, are of unknown antiquity, being
derived from the staple of savage thought.
That men existed, and sang ballads, " millions of years"
ago, the theory attributed to me by Mr. Henderson, I do
not know. Mr. E. B. Tylor places man's date " at least
tens of thousands of years ago." I think it highly probable
that man of the reindeer period in France had ideas much
like these of extant savages. If he told or chanted Mdrchen
(which I think likely), I should expect them to be much on
the level of low savage Mirchen: say Samoyed or Eskimo;
if he sang tales in verse, I conceive that they may have contained talking animals, sorcerers, elves, and so on, as
many of our ballads do. But I have not, and nobody has,
any evidence as to the ballads of " millions of years before
any existing human records." If I ever said that many
extant ballads date from millions of years ago, I said what
I cannot prove, and I am anxious to be shown the exact
words which I employed. It is unkind of Mr. Henderson
to accuse me of delirious nonsense, and yet to offer no
reference to my ravings.
The facts as to the extremely wide diffusion, in popular
poetry, of the situations, and frequently of the plots, of old
traditional narrative romantic ballads, were almost unknown
to Scott. These facts I first found out for myself by reading
foreign collections, in the early seventies, and Professor
Child's later work greatly increased the range of my knowledge.
Manifestly the wide diffusion of the stories in the
ballads brings them into relation with the problem of the
diffusion of Mdirchen, that old puzzle.
Mr. Henderson writes, "The late Professor Child's list of analogous foreign ballads is curious, and in some respects invaluable; but it is possible to overrate or misunderstand its significance. An exhaustive list of the plots of the novelists of all nations would be certain to reveal many strange coincidences; but a very large number of them could not but be accidental. The range of possible variety
of plot in the ballad is much more limited, both on account
of the comparative shortness of the tale and the limited
variety of events in early times." The events are, of
course, often such as do not occur, except in early fancy,
" popular fancy." People do not really shift shapes with
beasts, are not carried into fairyland, do not bear off their
ladies to bed with them in the grave, do not hold conversations
with birds, and so forth, as they do in ballads. Such
events are, undeniably, the creations of " savage and popular
fancy," however much the words may offend Mr. Henderson.
The ideas are universally human, and therefore inform all Marchen and Marchen-like ballads, where these
exist.
Mr. Henderson presently cites my alleged belief about
ballads millions of years old, and says that Professor Child's
opinion is " exactly the opposite " of mine; that is, of the
opinion which Mr. Henderson attributes to me. I can readily
believe that Professor Child did not suppose many of our
extant ballads to be millions of years old! No more do I.
He is quoted thus: " Some have thought that to explain this
phenomenon [the identity of plots] we must go back almost
to the cradle of mankind, to a primeval common ancestry of
all or most of the nations amongst whom it appears." I
am unaware that I ever attributed a common ancestry to
Greeks, Samoyeds, Magyars, Huarochiri, Celts, and so forth.
I know nothing about the matter. Professor Child goes on.
" But so stupendous an hypothesis is scarcely necessary."
I entirely agree. " The incidents of many ballads are such
as might occur anywhere and at any time." Again I agree,
and add that, given similarity of custom (say husband and
wife taboo), similar events (which never occurred, or could
occur) might independently be invented, in tales, such as
Cupid and Psyche, to explain or enforce the taboo. Professor
Child then speaks of the opportunities of diffusion of
tales, " during the Middle Ages, and the Crusades." Now
I have also insisted that captured slaves, and alien wives
(under exogamy), and mariners drifted to unknown coasts,
and commerce in all ages, must have diffused story-plots.[4]
Wherein, then, is Professor Child's opinion " exactly the
opposite " of mine ? As far as I see, we are of one mind.
Mr. Henderson cites Professor Child from an essay, unknown
to me, in Johnson's Universal Cyclopvdz'a (1893):
" As there stated, his opinion is that ballads are the work
of individual persons, not of communities, but that they date
from a period before the people were distinguished " into
markedly distinct classes." In part I agree with Professor
Child. "Ballads are the work of individual persons," but
where collaboration occurs, consciously, or in course of
oral tradition, the quota, of each individual must now be
matter of conjecture; and reciters filled gaps in memory
with fragments of other ballads, or improved to their taste
out of their own invention, as Monsieur de Puymaigre
remarked some forty years ago. Thus no traditional version,
as it stands, is likely to be the work of one individual.
Some might improve on, others might spoil, the original
piece from which the original author himself might frequently
vary, adding or abridging. As to "markedly
distinct classes," these, of course, did exist in the Border,
but not much among the " simple," the " folk," the general
populace.
If I understand Mr. Henderson's own theory (compare
his chapter on Ballads in his Vernacular Literature of
Scotland) he thinks that most, or many of our traditional
romantic narrative ballads are versions of mediaeval literary
romances modified and degraded by vulgar versifiers and
by oral tradition. That some ballads are in this case I
entirely believe. For example (as I have elsewhere said)
Sir Aldingar may be derived from a literary source in
William of Malmesbury (ob. 1143), a version also found in
a French metrical Life of Edward the Confessor. But, as
to William of Malmesbury, Professor Child says "we
cannot well doubt that he is citing a ballad-a ballad
is known to have been made on a similar and equally
fabulous adventure," and he traces such fables to the
middle of the seventh century. Professor Child says again
(i., 98): "The idea of the love-animated plants has been
supposed to be derived from the romance of Tristram,
agreeably to a general principle, somewhat hastily assumed,
that when romances and popular ballads have anything in
common, priority belongs to the romances."
Every folklorist knows that many such inventions are common to the popular tales of the whole world, and that
mediaeval literary romances have often really borrowed the
ideas from the popular tales. There is a come and go;
literary romances borrow from dateless popular tales, and
balladists have sometimes borrowed again from literary
romances, notably in the Arthurian ballads, while Arthurian
literary romances are, in part, thought to be derived from
Breton popular lays.
But consider Professor Child's introductory essay on
Lady Isabel and the Elf Knight. Hundreds of ballad variants
of this piece exist all over Europe, and an analogous Miirchen
is found among the Zulus. The fundamental idea only is
the same. A girl is made sport of by a false knight, or
fabulous creature, who takes her to a place where he has
killed many other women. After that point, the ballads
introduce every conceivable variation, and every conceivable
conclusion. Can they then be derived from a romance,
which must have taken one definite line of its own ? If so,
no such romance is known to me, though Mr. Henderson
may be more fortunate. Even if he is, the many variations
must be due to " popular imagination," to unknown popular
singers and reciters.
Take the case of " The Loving Ballad of Lord Bateman; "
in its street guise, even, it contains many traditional
stanzas. Professor Child remarks that the story has a
close analogue in Robert of Gloucester's Life of St.
Thomas of Canterbury. Herein the hero is Becket's
father, answering to the Young Beichan or Bekie of some
Scottish variants. " Becket " may have suggested
" Beichan," our Scots ballad may have the Life of Becket
for one literary source. But, says Professor Child, "the
ballad, for all that, is not derived from the legend.....
The legend lacks some of the main points of the stories '
(Miirchen), "and the ballad, in one version or another, has
them." Here, as usual, I agree with Professor Child.
What is the donnde of this ballad ? A lover has left hislady (who has usually helped him out of her father's prison,
or enabled him to escape from the wrath of her father, a
giant, ogre, elephant, French king, Turk, Moor, or what
not) in a far country. He reaches his home, and (by dint
of magic or other constraint) forgets his love. She comes
to him, revives his memory, and weds him, though he has
just taken a new bride, whose wedding-feast she generally
interrupts. Every folklorist knows many versions of this
far-travelled tale, found in Samoa as in the Jason cycle,
where the conclusion is tragical. Often the forgetfulness
of the hero is absent.
Mr. Henderson replies (1) : "For anything that Mr.
Lang actually shows, there is nothing remarkable in different
countries having this story about the return of an old
true love, since the return of old true loves is quite
common."
Agreed! But that their ladies had released the men
from their father's prison; that the men took other brides
under magical constraint, and that the old true loves
returned during the bridal, and wedded their first flames,
cannot be a very usual- sequence of events. Even if it
were common, what then ? The ballads and stories would
all the more need no source in literary romance, as on Mr.
Henderson's theory; if I understand it.
(2) " If the similarities in the different versions are of
such a character as cannot be accounted for by a theory of
mere chance, the ballad could not have been evolved by
the' folk fancy,' whatever that may mean, for it is quite
incapable of constructing a minutely detailed story."
By the folk fancy, I mean here the fancy of peoples who
have no professional literary class, say the Eskimo, Zulus,
Algonkin, or Samoyeds. I would add European peasantry,
but it is not inconceivable that literary romances might
reach them, and be degraded by them, though, in fact,
Perrault's printed contes, for instance, are known to be
derived from French peasant tales, which still exist, unaffected by Perrault's printed versions. But the "folk
fancy" of Zulu, Algonkin, Samoyed, and Eskimo narrators
is not " incapable of constructing a minutely detailed story."
Every folklorist knows that, unless he believes in universal
borrowing from India.
(3) " Mr. Lang has never considered the possibility of
exportation at a comparatively late period." I shall be
happy to consider the theory if anyone will suggest the
date and port of " exportation," adding his proofs.
(4) " He has assumed that the Becket legend and the
ballad could not have been derived from the same old forgotten
romance."
May I not ask for proof of the existence of such a
romance prior to, say, 1300 ? I am not logically bound
to prove that there never was such a romance. And, if Mr.
Henderson discovers the romance, he will not necessarily
prove that the ballads and the legend and the Mirchen
are derived from it. As Professor Child says, it is " somewhat
hastily assumed, that when romances and popular
ballads have anything in common, priority belongs to the
romances."
(5) " He has not realised that the intermixture of the
Becket legend with the story of the ballad might have
occurred at a comparatively late period." About 1300, the
date of the Becket legend, is comparatively late. As Professor
Child says, the ballad, though in some variants
"affected by" the Becket legend, "for all that is not
derived from the legend." Variants, it may be remarked,
occur in Norse, Spanish, and Italian.
Mr. Henderson, of course, may be right, and Professor
Child may be wrong. But at present I feel safer in agreeing
with the greatest of authorities rather than with the
latest editor of The Border Minstrelsy. When Mr.
Henderson adds that my opinion-" frequently the popular
ballad comes down in oral tradition side by side with its
educated child, the literary romance on the same theme "- is " a mere fancy," I can, of course, point to Sir Aldingar,
William of Malmesbury's story, the corresponding Miirchen
going back to the seventh century, and the ballad which
Professor Child asserts to be the source of William's
legend. But as I have only Professor Child's word for
that ballad, Mr. Henderson may not care for the security.
It is not to be expected that my remarks will produce a
favourable impression on my critic, but I am anxious to
state my present position to the Folk-Lore Society. As
far as I have succeeded in analysing Professor Child's
opinions, out of his notes and introductions, I am fortunate
enough to agree with that eminent specialist. This, at
least, is encouraging.
Among other points, one needs particular attention.
Why do the European ballads (if I am right) turn on but
a few out of the many plots of European Miirchen ? To
answer the question needs wide comparative study. Have
we any ballad, for example, on a theme so universally
diffused as that of Cinderella ?
Not being acquainted with Celtic languages, I do not
enter into the question why the Celts, as Mr. Nutt says,
have no ballads, while he elsewhere applies the term
" ballads " to lays of the Feinn.[5]
The Celts certainly have some of the prose Mdrchen on
which many European ballads are based, but, as some aver,
the Celts have not made them the topics of brief traditional
narrative poems. Why they have not done so I do not
know, if they have not; but I fail to see how their abstention
affects the general argument. My opinion, ignorant of
Gaelic as I am, rests on that of Campbell of Islay, who
really did know Gaelic, was in the closest relations with the
peasantry, and heard numberless recitals.
He attributes abundance of " ballads " to the Celts of
the West Highlands (Popular Tales, vol. iv., p. 123, et
seq.). These "ballads," as Islay calls them, are not con-
i6o Notes on Ballad Origins.
fined to the saga about the Feinn. " Besides the ballads"
of the Feinn, " there are numerous traditional ballads and
other scraps of poetry similar to them in character, which
treat of giants, enchantments, and supernatural deeds, some
of which treat of fairies and fairy lovers; some of the loves
of men and women " (p. 171). These things are the staple
of our romantic ballads. Mr. Nutt denies that Celts lave
ballads, but a non-Celtic student may be allowed to rely on
Islay, who, by-the-bye, gives examples of peasant collaboration
in verse-making (p. I79)-
Let me add that Professor Gummere goes, as I understand
him, beyond me as to the " communal " origin of ballads.
Mr. Henderson (p. xxiv.) misquotes Professor Gummere
thus: "he is unable to assert communal authorship., in
any literal sense, for the ballad of the collectzons" (p. 185).
Professor Gummere, with Mr. Henderson's pardon, does
not say that. He writes (pp. 184-185): " Once more be it
said that the present object is not to assert communal
authorship, in any literal sense, for the ballad of the
collections, but to show in it elements which cannot be
referred to individual art, and which are of great use in
determining the probable form and origins of primitive
poetry. True, one might go further; there are strong
statements made by scholars of great repute, which definitely
deny individual authorship, in any modern sense, for
the ballads "-citing Biickel, Nigra, and Gaston Paris.
How erroneous is Mr. Henderson's quotation everyone
can see. Islay says (iv,, 127-128), " a ballad that bears the
stamp of originality, and the traces of many minds. . . . . A
popular tale is the oldest form. A popular ballad which
can easily be sung and remembered is the next growth."
A ballad " is not something definite, like a printed song
by a known author, but something which is continually
undergoing change" (p. 125)- Islay's view is my view. M. Gaston Paris writes that
early popular poetry is " improvised and extemporaneous with its facts," and " composed under the immediate impression
of the past, but by those and for those who have
taken part in it." (Gummere, p. I85, citing Histoire
podtique de Charlemagne, p. 2). This refers to ballads on
events, say Kinmont Willie. M. Gaston Paris agrees with
Lesley and with myself. But, when such a ballad comes down
to us, it has been worked over and contaminated by many
hands, at many dates: it is no longer the work of an individual.
It seems that Mr. Henderson has the great mass of
specialist opinion against him, though I am the sole object,
almost, of his censures. I cannot but think, too, that (how
much through my own fault I know not) he misapprehends
my opinions.
A. LANG.
Footnotes:
1. Blackwood, 1902.
2. J. A. I., vol. xvi., p. 327.
3. Wyatt Gill, Myths and Songs of the South Pacific, and Scenes from Savage Life.
4. See "A Far Travelled Tale," in Custom and Myth, and my preface to Miss Cox's Cinderella.
5. Folk and Hero Tales, pp. 40l, 411.