Age and source of the ballads of Child Ballad 2,
The Elfin Knight The 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 collected the words to over 300 British folk ballads. of Child Ballad 26, "
The Twa Corbies" Child's collection was not the first of its kind; there had been many less scholarly collections of English and Scottish ballads, particularly from Bishop
Thomas Percy's
Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (1765) onwards. There were also "comprehensive"
ballad collections from other countries. Child modelled his work on
Svend Grundtvig's
Danmarks gamle Folkeviser, classifying and numbering the ballads and noting different versions, which were placed side by side to aid comparison. As a result, one Child number may cover several ballads, which Child considered variants of the same story, although they may differ in many ways (as in "
James Hatley"). Conversely, ballads classified separately may contain turns of phrase, and even entire verses, that are identical. The editorial history of Child's publication received a monograph study by
Mary Ellen Brown in 2011.
Bibliographic history 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. However, as a scholarly edition this was superseded by his later and similarly named
The English and Scottish Popular Ballads. The first edition of Child's book was, once complete,
The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, ed. by Francis James Child, 5 vols (Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, [1882–98]). It was printed in one thousand copies, and issued in ten parts, each with a half-title and title page. The final title pages for each of the five volumes, printed in red and black, were issued with part 10. Part 10 emerged after Child's death, and was edited by
George Lyman Kittredge. Volume 5 contained a variety of scholarly apparatuses: the "Glossary" (V, pp. [309]-396); "Sources of the texts of the English and Scottish ballads" (V, pp. [397]-404); "Index of published airs of English and Scottish popular ballads, with an appendix of some airs from manuscript" (V, pp. [405]-424); "Index of ballad titles" (V, pp. [425]-453); "Titles of collections of ballads, or of books containing ballads" (V, pp. [455]-468); and "Index of matters and literature" (V, pp. [469]-502). It was reprinted again in 1965 in New York by
Dover, this time with an essay by Walter Morris Hart entitled 'Professor Child and the Ballad' (reprinted from
Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, vol. 21 [N.S. Vol. 14, no. 4]). Child's edition was also 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. by Helen Child Sargent and George Lyman Kittredge (Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 1904).0 Corrected edition of
The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, five volumes (Northfield, Minnesota: Loomis House Press, 2002-2011). Not counting reissues of the 1882-98 publication, this is its second edition. It incorporates, where they apply, the additional lyrics, additional commentary, corrections and music scores that Child included in appendixes in his subsequent volumes. It includes music scores (from sources that Child cited) for many ballads for which the 1882-1898 edition did not include one. ==Subjects of the ballads==