"It is borne in on me that I'm a bit puzzled by this thread in many ways... I can't help feeling that more is being made here than need be about a particular body of what are, after all, just songs like others."

Oh dear, Michael, I fear you're succumbing to a classic Mudcat syndrome: posting to a thread to inform all the previous posters that they are wasting their time over a thread that you consider inconsequential. People discuss these things because they find them interesting, that's all.

The facts that some ballads are long, others short, that some are heavy laden and others frivolous, that some are gripping and others dull, have all been acknowledged in many comments written above. The thread title does, however, refer specifically to the big long ones, so hardly surprising that we should address ourselves mainly toward those.

Although many of us would quarrel with some of Child's choices, the fact remains that his canon represents works that are older than the plethora of 18th - 19th century broadside songs, that deal with different kinds of topics, and that tell their tales in a different kind of lyric. The best of them (and that's quite a large category) are without peer as emotionally-involving pieces. There's nothing wrong with 'Maria Marten', but emotionally it's not on the same level as 'Tiftie's Annie' or 'Lucy Wan'. And people respond to them; I bet if you asked Martin Carthy what his most requested numbers have been over the years, he would tell you 'Famous Flower', 'Willie's Lady' and 'Prince Heathen'.

If you think that striding out to sing 'Tam Lin' or 'False Foudrage' requires no more thought, preparation or plain guts than 'The Black Velvet Band', then I wonder what you've been listening to for all your years of involvement with folk song. It's not a question of being 'scared', but it is a question of taking serious material seriously. Judging by the success of the ballad workshops EKanne was describing, it seems that your derision for all this 'soul-searching' isn't universally shared.