Tag Archives: Oxford Book of Ballads

Comfort listening: five songs

Posted on December 15, 2015 by H.M. Goodchild

This started off as a blog about folk songs. I haven’t talked about them much recently but they are there still as the backdrop to my writing and so, to give you something of their flavour, here’s a post about five of the Child … Continue reading →

Posted in Child Ballad, folk music, folk song, Music | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Lady Glencora and Lord Bateman

Posted on October 5, 2012 by H.M. Goodchild

I’m going to follow up my post on Kidnapped with another one exploring a folk song reference in a nineteenth century novel. This time the book is Anthony Trollope’s Can You Forgive Her? and the song is Lord Bateman (sometimes … Continue reading →

Posted in Anthony Trollope, Child Ballad, Chris Wood, folk music, love, Nineteenth century fiction | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Knights, and their impossible demands

Posted on August 23, 2012 by H.M. Goodchild

More upon knights in this post (for some reason, my readers like posts about knights and who am I to disappoint them?).  Child Ballad no. 2 is The Elfin Knight. It has a certain overlap with The Outlandish Knight (Child … Continue reading →

Posted in Allegory, Child Ballad, Dr Faustus, folk music, folk song, Imagined Village, knights, love | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The slippery nature of folksongs

Posted on May 16, 2011 by H.M. Goodchild

Now folksongs, being an oral tradition, are fluid and slippery things, shifting form to match place and time. They contain mnemonic tricks and formulae, as in any oral tradition, and this can lead to one story getting horribly tangled into … Continue reading →

Posted in Child Ballad, folk music, folk song, Music | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment