The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #143842   Message #3330824
Posted By: John Minear
29-Mar-12 - 06:39 PM
Thread Name: Origins: Child Ballads in 18th c. America?
Subject: RE: Origins: Child Ballads in 18th c. America?
Well the thunderstorm did not blow me away. In going over the revised survey, I find that out of 108 samples 80 of them have been attributed to one or more "sources" who either sang or recited them for somebody, in the 18th century. I would assume that this is as close as we can actually get to any sense of a living "oral tradition" in the 1700s of England and Scotland.

The remaining 28 ballads on the survey, which are documented by Child's sources as being from the 18th century, and which have been documented by Coffin, et.al. as having been found in the oral tradition in America at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, apparently come from either printed collections, private manuscripts or broadsides. These are not mutually exclusive categories. And this does not mean that they weren't being sung and recited as well. However, at least as far as Child's sources go, apparently nobody documented them from sung/recited sources. However, we know they were being sung, because they were collected as sung ballads in America.

Here are the 28 ballads that are not documented with source singers/reciters:

{18}SIR LIONEL

{45}KING JOHN AND THE BISHOP

{54}THE CHERRY-TREE CAROL

{56}DIVES AND LAZARUS

{105}THE BAILIFF'S DAUGHTER OF ISLINGTON

{118}ROBIN HOOD AND GUY OF GISBORNE

{120}ROBIN HOOD'S DEATH

{122}ROBIN HOOD AND THE BUTCHER

{125}ROBIN HOOD AND LITTLE JOHN

{126}ROBIN HOOD AND THE TANNER

{138}ROBIN HOOD AND ALLEN A DALE

{139}ROBIN HOOD'S PROGRESS TO NOTTINGHAM

{140}ROBIN HOOD RESCUING THREE SQUIRES

{141}ROBIN HOOD RESCUING WILL STUTLY

{162}THE HUNTING OF THE CHEVIOT

{167}SIR ANDREW BARTON

{176}NORTHUMBERLAND BETRAYED BY DOUGLAS

{181}THE BONNY EARL OF MURRAY

{185}DICK O THE COW

{248}THE GREY COCK, OR, SAW YOU MY FATHER?

{267}THE HEIR OF LINNE


{272}THE SUFFOLK MIRACLE

{274}OUR GOODMAN

{275}GET UP AND BAR THE DOOR

{283}THE CRAFTY FARMER

{285}THE GEORGE ALOE AND THE SWEEPSTAKE

{287}CAPTAIN WARD AND THE RAINBOW

{289}THE MERMAID