24o NORDIC BALLADS

Ravens or Twa Corbies (26), which has travelled as far as Russia in
recent times. The number of ballads of really first-rate quality in
Child's collection is high. One may cite 'honoris causa' The Flower
QJ Northumberland, Clerk Saunders, Leesom Brand, The Lass o'
Rock Royal, Young Beichan, Little Mmgrave, Young Hunting, and
Babylon. It is not only that the story is well handled, but individual
verses are often of surprising power and beauty, proving how
great a reserve of true poetical skill was available for the composi-
tion of our ballads. By contrast with the pedestrian style of
such recent pieces as The Lord of Lorn, The Suffolk Miracle, The
famous Flower of Serving-men, and James Harris, we form some
estimate of the harm done to style by the broadcasting of ballad
journalese.

It is not necessary to go into the history of ballad journalism in
England, since it has no international significance. From the Tudor
ballad-mongers onwards the broadside ballad was the most direct
means of impressing the common man for some political purpose.
Their value for historians was recognized by Selden, and it was
doubtless of them that one wrote that he cared not who made a
people's laws, if he made their songs. Superseded by the news-
sheet in due course, the broadside ballad did not wholly lose its
influence until the spread of compulsory education deprived it of
its public. It was still possible for boys to stop Macaulay in the
street as he was reading a paper, and to ask him to recite the
supposed ballad to them. Though the whole public is now a
reading public, the demand for oral entertainment still exists, and
is satisfied by the lamentable products of the music-hall and of
crooners.

English settlers in America took with them the debris of the
national ballads. The versions encountered in the Appalachians
and elsewhere are of definitely English ancestry, and in no case do
they contain variants superior to those of Scottish tradition. In
general they show a certain deterioration of taste, due to the cor-
rupting influence of broadsides; yet the damage is not so very con-
siderable. Many texts are old, reaching back to the seventeenth
century. The use of melodies in the old modes, employing the
pentatonic and hexatonic scales, is a guarantee of authenticity.
In general, it appears that the melodies have been well preserved
or even improved in quality. The collection of Appalachian ballads
by Campbell and Sharp contains no less than thirty-five which are