Ballads are a form of poem / song which was an oral tradition in the early 16th century, they where a means of getting information out to people like tabloid newspapers do now, the ballads written where originally songs which where related to gossip or current affairs they would have often been printed on very cheap paper and then sold, they where a very early form of newspapers like the sun or mirror. When these ballads where written they did not have much detail and normally had tragic stories and where written in stanza or verses and would often have a moral to them like in the 'Earl Brand' ballad.'Earl Brand' is an example of a good ballad with a moral, in this ballad Earl Douglas dies fighting for his one true love, Lady Margaret. Who is the daughter of Earl Brand.
The two lovers run away together because ofLady Margaret's dad who disapproves of the relationship, this then leads to a bloody battle between the two enemies in which Earl Douglas dies. The next morning Lady Margaret also dies due to the loss of her lover. We then see an image of two plants entwining which symbolises the lover struggler is over and finally they can love each over unconditionally. The ballad is very long which is not uncommon for ballads written around this time.'The Bailiffs Daughter of Islington' is a traditional ballad that was set in Islington when it was just a small village to the north of London.
This ballad is about a young girl who is very timid and coy due to the fact that people hate her in her home town because here father has the job of a bailiff, so she sets of to London to find a boy who she fell in love with she then finds him and falls instantly in love and gets married .this ballad is a lot like 'Earl brand' because there both about love, they also both have dialogue .they also use colour quite a lot to symbolise passion ,love and a lease of new life.'Edward' is an example of a Scottish ballad, which was written in the 18th century, this ballad is composed entirely of dialogue 'Edward' is about a man who has accidentally bumped into his mum wearing a bloody shirt his mother then interrogates him trying to find out what has gone on, he tells his mum a number of lies until he cracks and confesses to killing his father, this leads to a dispute between the mother and son in which he curses her. This ballad is like the others in the sense that it is very repetitive, and that it has a tragic story line also use dialect like in the others, unlike the other two this ballad is the easiest to under stand I think.'Life of the Manning's' is a ballad written to commorate the executionof Mr and Mrs Manning who where in London at horsemonger lane jail on Tuesday the 13th November 1849 this is the only ballad which we have studied whish is based on a historical event .this ballad which we have studied tells us the story of the manning s and how they killed the ex lover of Maria Manning, The wife of Mr Mamming but this soon was to back fire when they get caught red in the act and they get killed by hanging or as it's put in the ballad the 'Fatal Tree' .like the other ballads this one has a lot of rhyming In it .this ballad has a lot more detail unlike the others which where quite brief in terms of detail,you can get the moral from this ballad more easy unlike the rest .Having read these set of ballads I feel that ballads are very interesting, they all have hidden meaning and a moral to them the ballad that I found the easy to understand and most interesting was Edward because it was easy to get into and I had lots of dramatic text and I could kind of relate to what Edward was saying.
