Does anyone do any of the really long, narrative traditional ballads? I occasionally do a Little Musgrave that runs to 26 verses, a 34-verse Young Hunting/Earl Richard and a 35-verse Lord Bateman. Other than those three, the longest songs I do - Banks of Green Willow, Fair Annie, Mary Hamilton, Lord Allenwater - barely reach 20 verses. A lot of the more popular Child ballads set up or work towards a single scene or confrontation (Sheath & Knife, Bonny Hind, Edward, Two Pretty Boys, the Cruel Mother, Young Waters...) and those ones naturally seem to come out at a sort of mid-length of 8-16 verses; the long ones have more plot to keep them going. And the really long ones have a *lot* more plot - which makes them fun to learn & sing. Musgrave, Bateman, Young Hunting - what else do people sing in the 25-verse-plus range?
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