Editing Ballad (section)

===Traditional ballads===
{{See also|Child Ballads}}
[[File:The-Twa-Corbies.jpg|right|thumb|Illustration by [[Arthur Rackham]] of the Scots ballad "[[The Twa Corbies]]"]]
The traditional, classical or popular (meaning of the people) ballad has been seen as beginning with the wandering [[minstrels]] of late medieval Europe.<ref name="Houseman1952" /> From the end of the 15th century there are printed ballads that suggest a rich tradition of popular music. A reference in [[William Langland]]'s ''[[Piers Plowman]]'' indicates that ballads about [[Robin Hood]] were being sung from at least the late 14th century and the oldest detailed material is [[Wynkyn de Worde|Wynkyn de Worde's]] collection of Robin Hood ballads printed about 1495.<ref name="Sweers2005">B. Sweers, ''Electric Folk: The Changing Face of English Traditional Music'' (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), p. 45.</ref>

Early collections of English ballads were made by [[Samuel Pepys]] (1633–1703) and in the [[Roxburghe Ballads]] collected by [[Robert Harley, 1st Earl of Oxford and Earl Mortimer|Robert Harley]], (1661&ndash;1724), which paralleled the work in Scotland by [[Walter Scott]] and [[Robert Burns]].<ref name=Sweers2005/> Inspired by his reading as a teenager of ''[[Reliques of Ancient English Poetry]]'' by [[Thomas Percy (bishop of Dromore)|Thomas Percy]], Scott began collecting ballads while he attended Edinburgh University in the 1790s. He published his research from 1802 to 1803 in a three-volume work, ''[[Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border]]''. Burns collaborated with [[James Johnson (engraver)|James Johnson]] on the multi-volume ''[[Scots Musical Museum]]'', a miscellany of folk songs and poetry with original work by Burns. Around the same time, he worked with [[George Thomson (musician)|George Thompson]] on ''[[A Select Collection of Original Scottish Airs for the Voice]]''.<ref name="Scott">{{cite book|last=Gregory|first=E. David |title=Victorian Songhunters: The Recovery and Editing of English Vernacular Ballads and Folk Lyrics, 1820-1883|url=https://archive.org/details/victoriansonghun0000greg|url-access=registration|access-date=August 30, 2017|date=April 13, 2006|publisher=Scarecrow Press|isbn=978-1-4616-7417-7|pages=[https://archive.org/details/victoriansonghun0000greg/page/42 42]–43}}</ref>

Both Northern English and Southern Scots shared in the identified tradition of [[Border ballads]], particularly evinced by the cross-border narrative in versions of "[[The Ballad of Chevy Chase]]" sometimes associated with the Lancashire-born sixteenth-century minstrel [[Richard Sheale]].<ref name="Gregory2006">D. Gregory, '"The Songs of the People for Me": The Victorian Rediscovery of Lancashire Vernacular Song', ''Canadian Folk Music/Musique folklorique canadienne'', 40 (2006), pp. 12-21.</ref>
[[File:Illustration to the ballad Young Beckie from "Some British Ballads".jpg|right|thumb|Illustration by [[Arthur Rackham]] to ''[[Young Bekie]].'']]
It has been suggested that the increasing interest in traditional popular ballads during the eighteenth century was prompted by social issues such as the enclosure movement as many of the ballads deal with themes concerning rural laborers.<ref>Robin Ganev,''Songs of Protest, Songs of Love: Popular Ballads in 18th Century Britain''</ref> James Davey has suggested that the common themes of sailing and naval battles may also have prompted the use (at least in England) of popular ballads as naval recruitment tools.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://enterprise.gre.ac.uk/news/articles/2011/gmi-ballads-talk |title=Talk examines ballads and naval recruitment in the 18th century - 2011 News - Articles - News - University of Greenwich Business and Enterprise |access-date=2012-08-07 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121024235716/http://enterprise.gre.ac.uk/news/articles/2011/gmi-ballads-talk |archive-date=2012-10-24 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

Key work on the traditional ballad was undertaken in the late 19th century in Denmark by [[Svend Grundtvig]] and for England and Scotland by the Harvard professor [[Francis James Child]].<ref name="N. Bold, 1979 p. 5"/> They attempted to record and classify all the known ballads and variants in their chosen regions. Since Child died before writing a commentary on his work it is uncertain exactly how and why he differentiated the 305 ballads printed that would be published as ''[[The English and Scottish Popular Ballads]]''.<ref>T. A. Green, ''Folklore: An Encyclopedia of Beliefs, Customs, Tales, Music, and Art'' (ABC-CLIO, 1997), p. 352.</ref> There have been many different and contradictory attempts to classify traditional ballads by theme, but commonly identified types are the religious, supernatural, tragic, love ballads, historic, legendary and humorous.<ref name=Houseman1952/> The traditional form and content of the ballad were modified to form the basis for twenty-three bawdy pornographic ballads that appeared in the underground Victorian magazine ''[[The Pearl (magazine)|The Pearl]]'', which ran for eighteen issues between 1879 and 1880. Unlike the traditional ballad, these obscene ballads aggressively mocked sentimental nostalgia and local lore.<ref>Thomas J. Joudrey, "Against Communal Nostalgia: Reconstructing Sociality in the Pornographic Ballad," ''Victorian Poetry'' 54.4 (2017).</ref>