The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #131826   Message #2977619
Posted By: Paul Burke
01-Sep-10 - 12:54 PM
Thread Name: Child Ballads survived in oral trad.
Subject: RE: Child Ballads survived in oral trad.
Depends what you mean by survive. At least some of the Child ballads continued to be sung, in attenuated form, by, well, children. An example that springs to mind is the Cruel Mother, which "descended" from an Awful Warning About Hell Fire to a caution about playing with sharp knives, at least in the version my mother sang.