The Folk-Ballad: The Illegitimate Child of the Popular Ballad

Author(s): Sigrid Rieuwerts

Source: Journal of Folklore Research , Sep. - Dec., 1996, Vol. 33, No. 3 (Sep. - Dec., 1996),
pp. 221-226
Published by: Indiana University Press

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3814677

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 Meditations 221

Sigrid Rieuwerts

The Folk-Balla

When William Thor

of the Saxon comp
precedents) for wh
ballads of the old
invited to collect a
journal) "some re
tom?some fading l
emphasis mine). Th
Harvard, and alth
thirty years later
and Scottish Popu
term "folk"? Is th
Child's earlier coll
It included "tradit
basically "everythi
in Hustvedt 1970:
collection Danmark
letter to his Dan
Volksballade from
that Child used the
as "popular ballad"
Child's pupil Fran
refuge, so that he w
liche poesie," that i
(see Gummere 189
Child could easily
loaded himself dow
the times, folk de
more intense idea
carried its attachm
1988:291). Thus, b
tones and an ideal
convincing, especia
in its original for
ballads was firmly
theories he and Gr
and the Grimms.2

fournal of Folklore Research, Vol. 33, No. 3, 1996

Copyright ? 1996 by the Folklore Institute, Indiana University

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222 Journal of Folklore Research

Two ideas in particular gave direct impulses to

ballads. The first is the assumption of different
historic unified people and the second is the di
poetry of nature/poetry of the people and Kunst
explained in the 1860 preface to the second edit
the true popular ballads, the spontaneous prod
guished from artificial literature, i.e., from th
ballad makers. It was, however, difficult to know
of the ancient ballads have a sort of literary ch
printed from oral tradition" (Child 1860, l.vii,
In his "Ballad Poetry" essay of 1874, Child elab
complaining that the English language had "no
German Volksballade, he then suggested adding
ballad in the hope of distinguishing this "very
other types of balladry. Only the popular ballad c
species of poetry, Goethe's Urei so to speak, from
The popular ballad's "historical and natural plac
the poetry of art, to which it has formed a step,
displaced, and, in some cases, all but exting
society that gave rise to the popular ballad was
where "no sharp distinction of high and low...
and tastes" (Child 1874, 1:464) yet existed and t
the Sturm und Drang school advocated by Chi
such poetry: 'The fundamental characteristic of
absence of subjectivity and of self-consciou
Kircher 1903).3 With further civilization and t
however, the people began to be divided and c
that once formed this classless society disappe
ballad was threatened, too. In the course of tim
marginalized?according to Child it was "aband
over-cultivated class" (1874, 1:464)?and eventual
Child saw his task to edit this ancient poetry by
constantly diminishing number of the "not over-
sent out his appeals for the collection of the p
In one of these appeals, printed incidentally in W
for 1873, Child explicated his plan for the pu
ballads in the English language, in all their form
case as near as possible to genuine texts, collati
books and broadsides, and discarding editorial c
do this to the full extent, it is essential that I s
transcript of ballads derived from recitation in
The genuine texts, not to be confused with a
established, as Child explained, by collating ma
and broadsides. Ballad texts derived from recit
required primarily for collating purposes or whe
up. This evaluation of material from oral tradit
the fact that Child held the popular ballad spec

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 Meditations 223

Only ballads colle

modern Zeitgeist,
people) or from r
Faroe Isles) could t
The English and Sco
transmitted "pure
and as such, untou
hand, he wanted to
included not only
tradition.

It has gone completely unnoticed that Child distinguished two types of tradi?
tional ballads: the one was the popular ballad and the other came close to what we
call a folk-ballad today. Both were popular in the sense of volksmdssig, but while the
former is a genuinely old form of the poetry of a homogeneous people and thus,
primarily of antiquarian and literary interest, the latter is an anonymous narrative
song that lives on in oral tradition.
As early as 1847, Child's mentor Grundtvig warned against confusing Folkepoesi
and Almuepoesi:4 the era of the popular ballad (Folkepoesi) is gone once and for all,
he argued, but the folk-ballad, the ballad of the common people (Almuepoesi) will
always exist. While the popular ballad is of enduring value, the folk-ballad, so
Grundtvig continued, can rarely hope for much interest from the educated classes.
It is a child of the moment, in fact, the illegitimate child of the genuine popular
ballad: "egentligFolkepoesiens ucegte Barn. "The legitimate heir of popular poetry is
the "nationale Kunstpoesi," or in Child's words, the poetry of art.
Just as the distinction between two types of poetry (the poetry of the people and
the poetry of art) is not absolute, it is often difficult to draw the line between two
types of ballads from oral tradition (the popular ballad and the folk-ballad).
Following Child's line of argument, however, it will show up eventually, for no new
popular ballads are made and what is left forms part of a dying oral tradition. The
making of folk-ballads, on the other hand, continues. But how to distinguish
between a traditional ballad in living and in dying tradition when they are inter?
mixed in one singer's repertoire? Even to Child this was not absolutely clear and
the confusion that abounds today probably results from similar difficulties. In a
letter dated August 10, 1874, Child was seeking advice from Grundtvig about the
criterion of the "genuine national or people's ballads": T think the distinction
easier to feel than to formulate" he admitted to his Danish friend and challenged
him "to try to express the more subtle characteristics of an old popular ballad in
words" (in Hustvedt 1970:268). However difficult it was?and is?to define the
"subtle characteristics," The English and Scottish Popular Ballads was meant to include
only the ancient people's ballads in order to document an early stage of English
literature and culture and to offer a corrective to later forms of poetry. And yet, it
would be wrong to assume that the editor of the popular ballads was not interested
or aware of the folk-ballad in its living tradition. Child's papers and letters give
ample proof of his own ballad collecting, performing, and even ballad-making
activities, but to him, of course, this was a completely different story, hardly worth
mentioning, not least, I guess, because the popular ballad's illegitimate child was
looked down upon by educated men of his time.

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 224 Journal of Folklore Research

The recognition of an independent ballad g

adjective "popular," was the hallmark of Child's
Ballads. In purpose and scope the now standard
language distinguished itself from previous coll
nately the genuine Volksballade with songs, lite
tations, romances, and epic poems (see Rieuwer
by not printing alongside the genuine popular b
of modern printed ballads, graphically referred
aftergrowth of oral tradition" (Child to Grun
1970:263).
In sum, the expressions popular ballad (today
ballad) and/b/A ballad cannot be used interchang
yet that the word "folk-ballad" was even used in t
Child, although "Folk-Lore" was certainly a famili
exist, why should Child have felt the need to
translation of the German Volksballade when t
the people) was well established and recognized
It should also be borne in mind that Thoms's
"Folk-Lore" marked "a distinct shift in emphasi
ods of research" (Emrich 1946:363). There is
manuscript or published materials; Thoms's em
lections and observations as well as field-record
scholarly methods of collating manuscripts came
seen to be a distinct form of literature and not o
English and Scottish Popular (emphasis added) Ba
collecting of the /o/A-ballads of the English-spea

Johannes Gutenburg-Universitdt
Mainz

NOTES

1. This is historically inaccurate not only for the German term Volk
Nicolaisen has pointed out) for the English 'folk": "What has caused
confusion in the ranks of historians of folklore is the fact that Engli
German Volk, though obviously cognate, are not completely congruen
the English term has never included in its several variant meanings a
people living in a nation, and it therefore lacks the potentially nation
tones of the German term" (Nicolaisen 1995:72).
2. It is not surprising that Bell cannot see any similarities betwee
Herder, given his rather odd view on the German theologian, poet, an
In my opinion, Herder can neither be accused of having "invented an
the folk" in order to rewrite a history that was not in its favor, nor can
that he "desired to achieve political independence for the diverse ethn
ties of Western Europe" (Bell 1988:299). Herder certainly had no po
tions and if anything, his heart was not with Western Europe but w
peoples.

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Meditations 225

3. 'The condition of society in which a truly national or popula

explains the character of such poetry. It is a condition in which t
divided by political organization and book-culture into markedly d
which consequently there is such community of ideas and feeling
people form an individual. Such poetry, accordingly, while it is
expression of our common human nature, and so of universal an
interest, will in each case be differenced by circumstances and idio
other hand, it will always be an expression of the mind and heart o
individual, and never of the personality of individual men" (Chi
4. "Man maa nemlig vel vogte sig for at forvexle Folkepoesi med
saadan vil altid findes, men sjaelden kunne gjore Krav paa synde
den dannede Deel af Folket; den er et Ojeblikkets Barn, og
Folkepoesiens uaegte Barn, medens dennes aegte Barn og Arving
Kunstpoesi" (Grundtvig 1847, 1:23).
5. To name just three influential ballad books that had "popular

Popular Ballads and Songs, from Tradition, Manuscripts, and

with translations of similar pieces from the ancient Danish lang
originals by the Editor. By Robert Jamieson. 2 vols. Edinburgh,
Select Remains of the Ancient Popular Poetry of Scotland. B
Edinburgh, 1822.
Popular Music of the Olden Time; a Collection of Ancient Son
Dance Tunes, illustrative of the National Music of England, with sh
to the different periods, and notices of the airs from writers of t
centuries. Also a short account of the Minstrels. By W. Chappell

REFERENCES CITED

Bell, Michael J.
1988 "No Borders to the Ballad Maker's Art: Francis Jame
Politics of the People." Western Folklore 47:285-307.
Child, Francis James
1873 "Old Ballads. Prof. Child's Appeal." Notes and Queries
11:12.

1902 [ 1874] "Ballad Poe try." Universal Cyclopaedia and Atlas. Ed. RossiterJohnson.
Rev. and enl. by Charles K. Adams. 12 vols. New York: Appleton.
1:464-68.

Child, Francis James, ed.

1860 English and Scottish Ballads. 2nd series. 8 vols. Boston: Little, Brown
Company.
1882-98 The English and Scottish Popular Ballads. 5 vols. Boston: Hough ton,
Mifflin 8c Co.
Emrich, Duncan
1946 " 'Folk-Lore': William John Thorns." California Folklore Quarterly 5:355-74.

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 226 Journal of Folklore Research

Grundtvig, Svend
1966 [1847] "Pr0ve paa en ny Udgave af Dan
marks GamleFolkeviser: I: Kcempeviser. K0b
Danske Samfund. 1:1-46.
Gummere, Francis B., ed.
1894 Old English Ballads. Boston: Ginn & Company.
Hustvedt, Sigurd B.
1970 Ballad Books and Ballad Men. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ
Press, 1930; New York: Johnson Reprint.
Kircher, Erwin
1903 "Volkslied und Volkspoesie in der Sturm- und Drangzeit: Ein
begriffsgeschichtlicher Versuch." Zeitschrift furDeutsche Wortforschung
4:1-57.
Merton, Ambrose (William Thorns)
1846 "Folk-Lore." The Athenceum, No. 982:862-63.
Nicolaisen, W. F. H.
1995 "A Gleaner's Vision." Folklore 106:71-76.

Rieuwerts, Sigrid
1995 "From Percy to Child: The Popular Ballad as 'a distinct and v
important species of poetry.' " In Ballads and Boundaries: Narrati
Singing in an Intercultural Context, ed. James Porter, 13-20. Los Ang
les: University of California.

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