Neat idea for a research project...

Are you looking at ballads of American origin? or from the entire English-language repertoire? Or a pan-linguistic study? I guess that's an indirect way of asking "What field of study is the thesis for?"

For a contemporary American murder ballad check out Dave Carter's and Tracy Grammer's "Cat-Eye Willie Comes to Claim his Lover".

Now you've got me thinking about how to classify murder ballads--by where they take place (on the mountain, on the banks of the Ohio), by victim (wife, lover, sister), by perpetrator (why does Lord Arlen spring to mind?), by method (knife, strangulation, gunshot), by motive (wronged lover, mistaken identity, revenge)...

what fun!!!

V