Sensational shipwrecks, plagues, train wrecks, mine explosionsâall kinds of shocking acts of God and manâwere regularly chronicled in ballads, a few of which remained in tradition, probably because of some special charm in the language or the music. The shipwreck that lies in the background of one of the most poetic of all ballads âSir Patrick Spensâ cannot be fixed, but âThe Titanic,â âCasey Jones,â âThe Wreck on the C & O,â and âThe Johnstown Floodâ are all circumstantially based on actual events.
Outlaws and badmen
Epic and saga heroes figure prominently in Continental balladries, notable examples being the Russian Vladimir, the Spanish Cid Campeador, the Greek Digenis Akritas, and the Danish Tord of Havsgaard and Diderik. This kind of hero never appears in English and Scottish ballads. But the outlaw hero of the type of the Serbian Marko KraljeviÄ or the Danish Marsk Stig is exactly matched by the English Robin Hood, who is the hero of some 40 ballads, most of them of minstrel or broadside provenance. His chivalrous style and generosity to the poor was imitated by later ballad highwaymen in âDick Turpin,â âBrennan on the Moor,â and âJesse James.â âHenry Martynâ and âCaptain Kiddâ were popular pirate ballads, but the most widely sung was âThe Flying Cloud,â a contrite âgoodnightâ warning young men to avoid the curse of piracy. The fact that so many folk heroes are sadistic bullies (âStagoleeâ), robbers (âDupreeâ), or pathological killers (âSam Bass,â âBilly the Kidâ) comments on the folkâs hostile attitude toward the church, constabulary, banks, and railroads. The kindly, law-abiding, devout, enduring steel driver âJohn Henryâ is a rarity among ballad heroes.
Occupational ballads
A large section of balladry, especially American, deals with the hazards of such occupations as seafaring (âThe Greenland Whale Fisheryâ), lumbering (âThe Jam on Gerryâs Rockâ), mining (âThe Avondale Mine Disasterâ), herding cattle (âLittle Joe the Wranglerâ), and the hardships of frontier life (âThe Arkansaw Travelerâ). But men in these occupations sang ballads also that had nothing to do with their proper work: âThe Streets of Laredo,â for example, is known in lumberjack and soldier versions as well as the usual cowboy lament version, and the pirate ballad âThe Flying Cloudâ was much more popular in lumbermenâs shanties than in forecastles.
Chronology
Singing stories in song, either stories composed for the occasion out of a repertory of traditional motifs or phrases or stories preserved by memory and handed down orally, is found in most primitive cultures. The ballad habit thus is unquestionably very ancient. But the ballad genre itself could not have existed in anything like its present form before about 1100. âJudas,â the oldest example found in Francis James Childâs exhaustive collection, The English and Scottish Popular Ballads (1882â98), dates from 1300, but until the 17th century ballad records are sparse indeed. As an oral art, the ballad does not need to be written down to be performed or preserved; in any case, many of the carriers of the ballad tradition are illiterate and could not make use of a written and notated ballad. The few early balladsâ records survived accidentally, due to some monkâs, minstrelâs, or antiquaryâs fascination with rustic pastimes.
The precise date of a ballad, therefore, or even any particular version of a ballad, is almost impossible to determine. In fact, to ask for the date of a folk ballad is to show that one misunderstands the peculiar nature of balladry. As remarked earlier, the first recording of a ballad must not be assumed to be the balladâs original form; behind each recorded ballad can be one detected the working of tradition upon some earlier form, since a ballad does not become a ballad until it has run a course in tradition. Historical ballads would seem on the surface to be easily datable, but their origins are usually quite uncertain. The ballad could have arisen long after the events it describes, basing itself, as do the Russian ballads of the Kievan cycle and the Spanish ballads about the Cid, on chronicles or popular legends. It is also likely that many historical ballads developed from the revamping of earlier ballads on similar themes through the alteration of names, places, and local details.