our fortune to be makin' we was thinkin'

Okay everybody, I'm calling on your expertise. I'm looking for books in which ballads in general are important, or in which specific ballads play important roles and/or form the plot. May be fantasy, sci-fi, general fiction, whatever. I've come up with a few:

Tam Lin - Pamela Dean
The Perilous Gard - Elizabeth Marie Pope
Winter Rose - Patricia McKillip
Thomas the Rhymer - Ellen Kushner

Others? And which ballads are used?

For serious academic research purposes, of course. No, really, because this 'origins of science and philosophy' thing isn't working.

our fortune to be makin' we was thinkin'

Okay everybody, I'm calling on your expertise. I'm looking for books in which ballads in general are important, or in which specific ballads play important roles and/or form the plot. May be fantasy, sci-fi, general fiction, whatever. I've come up with a few:

Tam Lin - Pamela Dean
The Perilous Gard - Elizabeth Marie Pope
Winter Rose - Patricia McKillip
Thomas the Rhymer - Ellen Kushner

Others? And which ballads are used?

For serious academic research purposes, of course. No, really, because this 'origins of science and philosophy' thing isn't working.