I said
> then the significance of calling them 'popular' would be that, after having been produced by an elite, they had then been taken up by the people.
and Jim enquired
> Can't see the logic of that at all Richard - can you explain

I was exploring what Child meant by "popular", if he did not mean "Produced by the common people".

The sort of classless society that he apparently envisaged as the source of ballads would have been hard to find in Europe for more than a thousand years. Some of the stories may perhaps date back to such a society, but certainly none of his ballads.

Back to the nominal subject of this thread: most of us here do like ballads; but not all ballads, not even all of Child's. Some of that is a matter of individual taste but some of it is because he chose, against his better judgement, to include some very poor specimens.