EARLY reference to ballads gives us no information as to the method
of their composition: it proves only the existence, before 1300, the
date of the "Judas" text, of the ballad form as we now know it. The
vexed question of origin was launched in the eighteenth century by
Percy's sweeping claim for minstrel authorship, and since then the
matching of theories by scholars and collectors has drawn the literary
world into increasingly fervid, if not heated debate. Stated oversimply,
the varied sources of the ballad are held to be these:

(1) The dance, because of the rhythmic refrain, and because primi-
tive races today make up songs as they dance. Das Volk dichtet--the
"singing, dancing throng" is the poet. (2) Individual poets, also of the
folk. (3) The courtly poets, often minstrels, since it is sometimes pos-
sible to trace the humble setting of today's ballad back to an aristo-
cratic Medieval background. (4) The monks, because the ballad stanza
shows a metrical similarity to the Latin hymn, thus bespeaking some
learning and skill, and because the earliest text, "Judas" (23), is reli-
gious in subject.

All these theories have their fallacies. It is difficult to see how "the
singing, dancing throng" can give itself simultaneously to two different
stimuli, that of rhythmic bodily movement in the dance, and that of
intense interest in the story. A try at dancing a ballad soon shows the
difficulties, though the Norwegians say it is possible. It is dangerous
to argue for communal authorship from the analogy of primitive cus-
tom: although the South Sea Islanders of today compose songs as they
dance, the resulting songs are lyrical and nonnarrative, not ballads.
And although a ballad of humble background may be traced back to
a Medieval courtly singer, this does not preclude all lowly authorship.
Poetic skill has come from a Jonson, a Marlowe, a Burns, even a
Shakespeare. The fact that our earliest copy of a ballad is on a religious
subject is not enough to prove monastic authorship of all ballads. If
the monks wrote the ballads, why are religious ones so scarce, and

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