ually killed the lyric, so that recitation of a story by a
minstrel took the place of the dancing chorus." In the
following passage he suggests a specific development: --

Probably the old ballad chorus in its proper dancing form was
going out of use in England about 1400. Barbour, a contem-
porary of Chaucer, speaks of girls singing "ballads" "at their
play"; Thomas Deloney in the time of Elizabeth describes the
singing of a ballad refrain; and the game lives happily still,
in songs of London Bridge and others. But it becomes more and
more common for ballads to be sung or recited to an audience
sitting still; ballads were given out by minstrels, like the min-
strel of Chevy Chase. Sometimes ballads are found swelling
into something like a narrative poem; such is the famous ballad
of Adam Bell, Clim o' the Clough, and William of Cloudeslee. ⁵

W. T. Young summarizes as follows: "Scholars are
coming to the conclusion that they [the ballads] originated,
as their refrains seem to indicate, in a song accompanied
by dancing and a chorus, not unlike the French carole." ⁶
Mr. T. F. Henderson, a keen and sane ballad scholar, like
Professor Ker, cannot concede that the ballad had its
origin in individual peasant improvisation nor that it was

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