our fortune to be makin' we was thinkin'

[timeripple]

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.

Comments

[alycarlson.livejournal.com]

Hmm...well, The Perilous Gard uses a lot of ballads that are central to the plot, but I don't know their names in particular. I'll try to think of others. :)

Abby

[timeripple.livejournal.com]

Tam Lin is the main one, although Randall is composing The Swan Swims Sae Bonny at the end, and I don't know what he sings at the beginning. I love that book - I think it introduced me to Tam Lin.

[kayselkiemoon.livejournal.com]

*grins* a favorite subject of mine!

in terms of retellings, you got the ones that spring to mind for me at first. also, check out the tam lin balladry (if you haven't already) and this terri windling article (honesttogod, i adore this woman). I wrote more, but windling's article has them all and more!

"reynardine" is found in Neil Gaiman's "The White Road" *shiver*
"twa' sisters" is found in Pat Wrede's "Cruel Sister" (or some similar name)

golly, I've just skimmed the Windling article tonight (am still at lisa's so should get off the computer) but as usual she has me dying to be able to be able to know all she knows, to have listened to all the discussions she has had... *grin*

[timeripple.livejournal.com]

Knew I could count on you. ;)

[nimoloth.livejournal.com]

Well, there are the Bardic Voices series by Mercedes Lackey, but they're mostly fantasy, maybe not what you're looking for. Beowulf? Robin Hood? Le Morte d'Arthur?

[timeripple.livejournal.com]

Fantasy is exactly what I'm looking for. Thanks for the tip!

[(Anonymous)]

my version of robin hood lists a whole bunch of verses from different ballads at the beginning of each chapter. if you want titles, just let me know.

-melanie

[timeripple.livejournal.com]

Titles would be great. I can look them up in my Oxford Book of Ballads, if the editing, which is "not mere Scottish prejudice", Mr. Kinsley insists, has not eliminated them.

[(Anonymous)]

these are definitely ballads:
the birth of robin hood
robin hood and the tanner
robin hood & allin-a-dale
robin hood & the bishop
the noble fisherman

these may or may not be ballads. some are poems, & other bits of literature, but here they are anyway:
sherwood by alfred noyes, 1903
the downfall of robert, earl of huntingdon by anthony munday, 1601
polyolbion xxvi by michael drayton, 1622
the foresters by tennyson, 1881
old rhyme by anonymous - something about drinking w/robin & little john
a lytell geste of robyn hode by anonymous, 1489
maid marian by thomas love peacock, 1822
robin hood's garland by anonymous, 1723
robin hood: an opera by moses mendez, 1751
a strappado for the divell by richard brathwayte, 1615
metropolis coronata by anthony munday, 1615
the sad shepherd by ben johnson, 1640
folk play of robin hood by anonymous, prior to 1476
ivanhoe by sir walter scott, 1820
robin hood by alfred noyes, 1926

enjoy!

-melanie

[timeripple.livejournal.com]

Thankee! I was reading Noyes' Sherwood on a bench at Chico State the other day, not ten minutes' walk from a famed local mural of Robin Hood, and just across the stream from where Sherwood bits of the 1939 movie were filmed.

[(Anonymous)]

not ten minutes' walk from a famed local mural of Robin Hood, and just across the stream from where Sherwood bits of the 1939 movie were filmed.

ooooo. i'm jealous. despite the extreme campiness of that movie, i absolutely love it. :P

-melanie