The Scottish Ballads - Alive and Singing!
The Scottish Ballads
Follow these links to full lists of ballads by Number and Title with many complete ballad texts. Francis J Child's newly republished The English and Scottish Popular Ballads is available for sale at Springthyme Book Sales.
The Book: [Child Republished]
Book Sales: [Book Sales]
By Number: [Child Ballads by Number]
By Title: [Child Ballads by Title] Scotland's Child Ballad Site
Many of the finest ballad versions in Francis J Child's The English and Scottish Popular Ballads were obtained from Scottish sources. Full texts of many of the ballads as in Child's collection are given on the site. We also intend to provide links to texts and sound files of archive field recordings. Contributed ballad texts, field recordings, and archive versions welcome!
For a start, here's a link to Child#2: The Elfin Knight and another to Child#12: Lord Randal. In each case the texts have been taken unedited from earlier editions of Child and from the newly published Loomis House Press edition (with permission) with hypertext links to enable easy navigation through the ballad variants. A [ LINK ] has also been provided on many Child ballad pages that leads to an expandable selection of pages of traditional versions from the archives - Versions from the Singing Tradition - which will include ballad variants collected from current and recent living tradition with linked sound files yet to be put in place.
In recent years the folk song revival has led to a reawakening of interest by singers in aquiring an active ballad repertoire. Many of these ancient, popular/ traditional ballads are still part of a living cultural tradition - especially here in Scotland at the heart of Child's ballad country. Who in Scotland does NOT know snippets at least of such ballads as Barbara Allen (Child #84), The Dowie Dens o Yarrow (Child #214), Mary Hamilton (Child #173), Sir Patrick Spens (Child #58), The Jolly Beggar (Child #279) or Mill o Tifty's Annie (Child #233)?
Now at last Francis James Child's great compilation of the ballads The English and Scottish Popular Ballads is republished. This essential reference work on the ballads has, until recently, been out of print since the 1960s when it was published in five volumes by Dover (New York, 1965).For anyone interested in the ballads as song or as literature or as an insight into culture and history the only starting point is Professor Francis James Child's The English and Scottish Popular Ballads first published between 1882 and 1898. Now, at long last, a new edition is becoming available - and this is no mere facsimile - the work has been completely reset, corrected and prepared by Mark and Laura Heiman and the first three of five volumes are now in print and available: Child Republished.
We would welcome suggestions and would be pleased to accept ballad variants, text and sound file links to the site. Contact us by email:
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