The ballad - Index of

The Ballad
senting them in concentrated form, Child had to
discuss this ballad in thirty quarto pages before
he came to its texts.
Thus he broke the back of an immense task
before English ballad-students had fully
realised
their duty but it
; may well be believed that
Child would have been the last to think his work
was final. Had he lived to complete the book by
writing his general introduction, we should have
known, no doubt, his exact reasons for admitting
Kinmont Willie and omitting 'The Children in the
Wood. The recent activity
in collecting folksongs
in this country has revealed a few variants
of known ballads, and perhaps a fresh ballad, that
Child might have added to his list, but it is nearly
as improbable (though quite as splendidly possible)
that any large or important addition will be
made to his gallant 305, as that excavations at
Oxyrhynchus or elsewhere will disgorge a manuscript
of vital interest to the world at large.
Yet
the knowledge that we are never likely
to recover
the complete works of Euripides does not prevent
us from studying such as we possess ;
and all
the material for study that any ballad-lover is
likely to require is to be found in Child's great
work.
I have said above that the ballad is one thing
and ballads another, and that ballads belong to
each other remarks, it may be, not less intelligible
nor less
open to varieties of interpretation