A Book of Old English Ballads

Old English Ballads. A Classic Publication - Complete. A Top 100 Music Book of Historical Importance. A Book of Old English Ballads by George Wharton Edwards and an Introduction by Hamilton W. Mabie. Complete Edition containing over 25 traditional English Ballads including Chevy Chace, King Cophetua and the Beggar-Maid, King Leir and his Three Daughters, Fair Rosamond, Phillida and Corydon, Fair Margaret and Sweet William. This apparent arrest, in the ballad stage, of a story which seemed destined to become an epic, naturally suggests the vexed question of the author ship of the popular ballads. They are in a very real sense the songs of the people; they make no claim to individual authorship; on the contrary, the inference of what may be called community authorship is, in many instances, irresistible. They are the product of a social condition which, so to speak, holds song of this kind in solution; of an age in which improvisation, singing, and dancing are the most natural and familiar forms of expression. They deal almost without exception with matters which belong to the community memory or imagination; they constantly reappear with variations so noticeable as to indicate free and common handling of themes of wide local interest. All this is true of the popular ballad; but all this does not decisively settle the question of authorship. What share did the community have in the making of these songs, and what share fell to individual singers?