It's hardly a matter of "minimality-über-alles." Nor is it a matter of the performer being unable to portray character or sustain the drama of a long ballad. It is that, in many ballads, there are verses that are simply ritualistic and neither reveal character nor add to the drama.

I am fully aware there are epic poems, which scholars believe were sung or at least chanted, that, literally, go on for days. In fact, it is believed by many that Homer's Iliad was one of these, recited or chanted to occasional chords (or whatever passed for chords before harmony was organized and codified in the recent millennium) played on a lyre or other plucked instrument. Beowulf is another. I haven't actually seen it in any book, but it's my understanding that one of the Child ballads (one of the Robin Hood ballads, I believe) runs over 800 verses.

I do a version of "Edward" that, when I encountered it, started with a long string of verses that said, "How comes that blood on thy shirtsleeve?" to which Edward responds that it's the blood of his old grey mare. His interrogator doesn't accept that and asks him again, so he says it's the blood of his old grey hound—and when she (presumably she, the ballad never makes that clear) doesn't accept that either, he continues through a whole flippin' menagerie before finally we get around to the meat of the story and he admits that he killed his brother-in-law.

Now, it is important to the story that he responds to the initial question with a lie, and when that doesn't work, he tries another lie. But from that point on, to have him continue in this vein, or for his interrogator to tolerate this beyond the first couple of times, undercuts the characters themselves and delays the narration for no good reason whatsoever. So I sing only the verses with the mare and the hound to establish his evasiveness and her persistence before he realizes that it isn't going to work and he confesses. Then we can get on with the rest of the story. It makes for a much tighter and more gripping narrative.

I sing a version of "Mattie Groves" that runs twenty-seven verses—very short by Middle Ages standards, but pretty long for modern audiences who are used to two verses, a bridge, and a final verse. Those modern audiences, of the "soundbite/video-game culture," follow it with rapt attention, because it is a gripping story full of suspense and it doesn't get diverted into whole strings of verses that are repetitious and merely ritualistic.

On the other hand, there are a few songs or ballads that I liked as found (good set of words, tune that I especially liked), but that I felt was incomplete, especially if it was a narrative,. I have selected verses from other more complete versions of the same song or ballad, did a little judicious rewriting if necessary, and inserted them. I'm fully aware that this is not the "scholarly" thing to do, but in these cases, I invoke, as Dr. Fowler called it, "the minstrel's prerogative."

I firmly believe that this sort of should not be done frivolously or indiscriminately and that deletions, additions, or changes should be thought about long and hard before doing them. But, in the end, this, after all, is what is known as "the folk process."

Believe me, it would make it a helluva lot easier to work up a set list for an evening's singing if all one had to do was pick one long narrative ballad. "Minimality-über-alles" has nothing to do with it.

Don Firth