But, indeed, if I told all the stories I should like to tell this
book would have no end. So we must leave them and pass on.
BOOKS TO READ
The Story of Havelok the Dane, rendered into later English
by Emily Hickey. The Lay of Havelok the Dane, edited by W. W.
Skeat in the original English.
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.
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