Sorry to have to disagree with one of my gods, Bertrand Harris Bronson, but in the North East of Scotland many of the most prolific ballad performers could only recite their ballads. Unfortunately they were still ballads. I agree it is much preferable to hear them sung, but for some they were still entertaining as stories in rhyme and they still passed down the traditions that they bore.

The problem here, many times repeated on these threads, is that all of these words under discussion don't have hard and fast definitions or characteristics. As someone said it is their 'essence' that we are really searching for. Ballads have many characteristics, but not all ballads have all of them. If a few are missing they can still be ballads.

Jim, just for the record, Jimmy Miller is not one of my gods (excepting his work on travellers' songs)

Button, Graham and Thomas who? You knew more about English Lit than I did even when I was teaching you.