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several spheres of action; and third, a single sphere of action can be distributed among
several characters. l While this ballad corpus illustrates all three of these patterns, it
consistently shows the same character functioning in at least two taleroles: as either
"offender" or "offended" and "denouncer." In concrete terms, all the protagonists,
whether failing morally--in committing crimes and faults--or psychologically--in wasting
their own life in grief for a loved one--eventually either spontaneously bemoan their
behaviour or are faced with their wrong.
The distribution of the characters filling these taleroles further suggests Ihe ballads'
particular highlighting of the revelation of the offence and its insidious gravity. This
emphasis shows in the greater diversity of agents functioning in the role of "denouncer."
Whereas the IwO other taleroles are, quite realistically, exclusively filled by human and
living characters, all the revenants function as "denouncer," thus revealing crimes and
wrongs even beyond death. Whatever their particular relationship to those they visit, they
make the tmth of a situation beyond the power of human justice and reason. The guilty call
also have their conscience stirred by a dream of the deceased (Ch 74, 214), sometimes
alternating with a revenant, which means that it is its function rather than nature that
matters. To reinforce the denunciation, this corpus also resorts to material agents animated
with the ballads' moral sense. This accounts for the apropos of the church bells ringing
"hard-hearted Barbara Allen" (Ch 84), the golden chains saying "there lies the body of
Geordie" (Ch 209), the victim's blood that cannot be stopped (Ch 49), and the murderess's
knife that can'l be washed (Ch 20). Such emphases on the role altogether uncover a certain
point of view on the events, which qualifies the last portion of G.H. Gerould's standard
definition of the genre according to which "A ballad is a folk-song that tells a story with
stress all the crucial situation, tells it by letting the action unfold itself in event and speech,
and (ells it objectively with little comment or intmsion of personal bias. "2
13.4. Synopsis
The following synopsis of each Iype of the corpus oUllines the concrete actions of the
characters and agents interacting in each of the taJeroles:
I Buchan, "Propp's" 162.
20ordon Hall Oerould, The Ballad 0/ Tradition (Oxford: Clarendon, 1932) II.