10 Facts About Child Ballads

Child Ballads are 305 traditional ballads from England and Scotland, and their American variants, anthologized by Francis James Child during the second half of the 19th century.

Child Ballads vary in age; for instance, the manuscript of "Judas" dates to the thirteenth century and a version of "A Gest of Robyn Hode" was printed in the late fifteenth or early sixteenth century.

Editorial history of Child Ballads's publication received a monograph study by Mary Ellen Brown in 2011.

In 1860, Child published an eight-volume collection entitled English and Scottish Ballads, generally presenting just one variant of each ballad, via Little, Brown and Company.

Child's edition was the basis for a number of shorter, popular editions, prominently including English and Scottish Popular Ballads Edited from the Collection of Francis James Child, ed.

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Child Ballads are generally heavier and darker than is usual for ballads.

Many Child Ballads have subsequently appeared in contemporary music recordings.

Joan Baez sang ten Child ballads distributed among her first five albums, the liner notes of which identified them as such.

In 2013 US singer-songwriter Anais Mitchell and Jefferson Hamer released Child Ballads comprising seven songs from the Francis James Child collection and in 2014 American folksinger Martyn Wylde released eight of the Ballads on his album The Child Ballads, Volume 1.

Child Ballads are referenced heavily in James A Michener's novel The Drifters.