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.
A ballad is much shorter than a romance, and therefore much more
easily learned and remembered. So many people learned and
repeated the ballads, and for three hundred years they were the
chief literature of the people. In those days men sang far more
and read and thought far less than nowadays. Now, if we read
poetry, some of us like to be quietly by ourselves. Then all
poetry was made to be read or sung aloud, and that in company.
I do not mean you to think that we have any ballads remaining to
us as old as the thirteenth or the beginning of the fourteenth
century, which was the time in which Havelok was written.
Pages:
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161