ABSTRACT
Ballads and folk-songs are works of art in their own right. They are both forms of Gesamtkunstwerk, products of a marriage (or some aestheticians say a rape) of two arts, words and music, which are roughly equal: in ballads the words are the dominant partner, in songs the melody is. But within musical folk art there are several categories in which the musicis willingly subservient. They are the dance, which may be ritual or social; ritual itself in connexion with seasonal observances like harvest-homes and Christmas; shanties, where the function of music is to lighten labour and allied to them street cries, in which a vendor sings to make his voice carry and commend his wares; singing games and nursey rhymes, which belong to the folklore of childhood; and the carol, which has elements from balladry, ritual, theology, the seasons, poetry, dancing and all.
