People love to sing ballads, songs that tell stories. Some of them have been sung for centuries, passed along by countless singers who loved the words or the tunes. In studying these songs, we are in touch with an art form that was created and embellished by ordinary people who were likely soothed and comforted, enthralled and delighted, or sometimes horrified and upset by the stories told in an earlier age. We often may not know exactly how old the ballads we sing are–we only ever know the date when someone finally wrote them down–but they are usually the earliest Read more