"hy do people refer to songs as "Child Ballads""
Child identified 305 songs as being 'ballads' and numbered them so the various versions could be identified and compared.
It is an invaluable reference number to those wishing to study them.
Malcolm Laws did the same with Native and Anglo-American ballads
More recently, Steve Roud has done the same with pretty near all folk songs.
It really has made a great number of people's lives a great deal easier
A toast to them all.
Jim Carroll