ENGLAND, SCOTLAND, AMERICA 241

in Child's collection, together with eighteen unknown to him.
Ballads have been encountered in more than half of the United
States and in the English provinces of Eastern Canada; in Quebec
there are traditional French ballads, Scandinavian communities in
North America have their 'viser', and the Spanish and Portuguese
elements of South and Central America their 'romances'. The *love
songs* (as they are called by those who sing them) of English
origin stand as typical of all the balladry of the New7 World,
since they alone have been extensively collected and intensively
studied.

Among those which survive from medieval tradition the greatest
popularity attaches to the sentimental Barbara Allan, the adulter-
ous Little Mitsgrave, and the tragic Douglas Tragedy. Innumerable
versions of these pieces seem to be obtainable in all parts. Their
survival is part of a certain limitation of interest. The modern
singer prizes above all a love song, and the historical and super-
natural ballads have receded from his ken. In addition to these
pieces there are many more modern ballads of British origin and
plebeian cast, such as The Butcher's Bo\\ Botany Bay, The Keys of
Heaven, The Waggoner's Lad, of sentimental or horrific import.
Such ballads serve as the models for new creations on the American
continent, which are of interest as springing from a kind of neo-
medieval society. Some of them convey news in the broadside
fashion. So Springfield Mountain, which appears to be of the eigh-
teenth century, tells how John and Molly Bland died, he of snake-
bite, she of poison in the attempt to suck the wound; Frankie and
Albert is aicrime passioneP in the pedestrian style:

When Frankie shot Albeit, he fell down on his knees,

looked up at her and said, 'Oh! Frankie, please,
don't shoot me no mo', don't shoot me no rno'.

4Oh, turn me over doctor; turn me over slow,

turn me over on my right side, 'cause the bullet am hurtin' me so.
I was her man, but I done her wrong.1

It is a strange relative of Donna Lombardal

The highlanders of Virginia and the Carolinas are a remote and
self-contained folk not unlike the ballad 'people* of the Middle
Ages. For another reason the American negroes form a modern
ballad community. Living among the whites, they are cut off by
social and racial distinctions which force the coloured folk to keep
to themselves. They are endowed with a keen musical sense and

4615 i