It sounds like there is some interdisciplinary work ahead, if the entire set were to be researched and recorded. Ballads that aren't meant to be sung? If they are to be performed in some way, perhaps someone needs to delve into some of those dusty British libraries for information regarding their original performances? Literacy rates in populations today are quite high, so we don't think twice about reading them, but the very nature of the ballads collected suggests that they evolved as performances in some venue or other for people who didn't all read. So how would they have been presented?

Maggie