Chapter XVIII ABOUT SOME SONG STORIES

BESIDES the metrical romances, we may date another kind of story
from this time. I mean the ballads.

Ballad was an old French word spelt balade. It really means a
dance-song. For ballads were at first written to be sung to
dances--slow, shuffling, balancing dances such as one may still
see in out-of-the-way places in Brittany.

These ballads often had a chorus or refrain in which every one
joined. But by degrees the refrain was dropped and the dancing
too. Now we think of a ballad as a simple story told in verse.
Sometimes it is merry, but more often it is sad.

The ballads were not made for grand folk. They were not made to
be sung in courts and halls. They were made for the common
people, and sometimes at least they were made by them. They were
meant to be sung, and sung out of doors. For in those days the
houses of all but the great were very comfortless. They were
small and dark and full of smoke. It was little wonder, then,
that people lived out of doors as much as they could, and that
all their amusements were out of doors. And so it comes about
that many of the ballads have an out-of-door feeling about them.