The English Ballad is a popular form of narrative poetry, generally involving tales of love or war with accounts of success and disappointment in those enterprises and often told from the standpoint of the participant or an observer (possibly a friend) who witnessed the events. It is a simple form involving long lines without run-on and recurrent abab rhymes - best suited to singing. The form originated in France and proved readily adaptable to English needs, becoming in time a versatile medium for popular history, love-stories, subversive songs, and - nearer our own time in the American and British Ballad Revival - the sum of these turned to the purposes of Counter Culture.

“The Twa Corbies [The Two Crows]”

“Sir Patrick Spens”

“Lord Randall”

“Barbara Allen”

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