The ballad - Index of

The Ballad
standard epithet and the commonplace phrase, as
well as frequent repetitions.
Again, it cannot now be doubted, in the face
of the mass of ethnological evidence, that the
dancing-song preceded the development of the
epic.
The rhapsodists who presumably strung
together the Homeric epic were mediators, it
may be, between the " masterless " constituents
and the artistic narrative, working in much the
same way as Boccaccio when he compiled his
Decameron from traditional tales. But coalition
of the dramatic or mimetic spirit with the epic
may take place at a far simpler and earlier stage.
The ritual performance, i.e. the repetition of
some dramatic fact, supplies nothing but a situation
;
and in course of time the bare situation
requires explaining.
The folk were tired of
dancing, but curious, and welcomed information
and " reasons why." By way of illustration, let
us conceive a picture of the first children
primitive adults who ever played the game
now known as " Nuts in May." The dancing
throng had mimed, it may be, a fight between
the champions of two armies, or had celebrated
a marriage-by-capture, and several pairs of actors
had struggled with or tugged one another to
death or espousal amid the plaudits of their
sides. Wearied of the game, they require
rest and a yarn, and call
upon the tribal
historian, who proceeds to tell them all
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