Abstract
AbstractThis article is concerned with the European ballad genre as defined in practice in the English and Scottish field by F. J. Child, and I shall use the term ‘old’ balladry to refer strictly to that genre. My purpose is firstly to consider in general how and to what extent Ireland has absorbed, diffused and preserved old English and Scottish ballads, and secondly to present particular unpublished ballad versions recorded by me from the tradition of the North-West counties Donegal and Derry during the years 1968 and 1969 My choice of examples has been governed by intrinsic merit as well as illustrative value, not by mere length. Length is no guarantee of poetic merit in ballads; even so, some of these texts are both strikingly beautiful and unusually long. Long or short, they are the first exclusive collection of old British ballads from Ireland yet to appear.
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