Page:Old English ballads by Francis Barton Gummere (1894).djvu/71

Rh INTRODUCTION, Ixv end of the sixteenth century, and by what delusion can we think of Shakspere*s countrymen running together some fine day to chant this simple story as a sort of off-hand oratorio ? Apart, too, from problems of origin and transmission, we must reckon with the changes wrought by migration, which hold good for the ballad as they do for the popular tale. True, when cynicism or flippancy leads us from the ballad to its source in a fabliau^ as is the case with " The Boy and the Mantle," we lay these faults to the charge of minstrels, and make due reservations ; but popular tales of humbler and more traditional character will account for many a true ballad,^ and thus establish its origin in the simple desire for entertainment. Ballads were quick enough to take up a moving story of any sort ; witness, with its hint of real history, the tale told in " Sir Aldingar," and followed by Grundtvig through so many chances ; or witness the supernatural motive of " Clerk Colven." ^ The ballad, moreover, is always close to popular legend, and, like the legend, holds peculiar relations with history, borrowing a trait, a fact, a name, or combining widely sundered events, as in " Mary Hamilton." Legend, again, may combine with legend, and ballad with ballad, as in " The Baron of Brackley," where we are at least tempted to assume two Barons, and a confusion of two traditional songs. Often this may have been accidental, and often the minstrePs 1 For example, The Twa Magicians, See Child's remarks, Ballads^ I, 401 (Part II) ; and Crane, Introduction to Chansons Populaires de la France^ New York, 1891, p. xxvif. ^Danmarks GatnU Folkeviser, I, 177 ff., and Child, Ballads, I (Part II), 374fl.— In MSlusine, I, i fl., De Vitude de la pohie populaire en France, Gaston Paris is inclined to limit this factor of borrowing as a source of ballads. Admitting that it has its place, he insists on ^e analogy of poetry and language, and on " un certain fonds ou patrimoine commun ^ toute la race aryenne." Digitized by LjOOQIC