Haud your tongue, ye auld fac'd knight, Some ill death may ye dee! Father my bairn on whom I will, I'll father nane on thee.There are four emphasized words in the first and third lines, and three emphasized words in the second and fourth lines--in short, 4-3-4-3.
Here's an example of the 4-4-4-4 meter, where all lines have four emphasized words:
I am a man upon the land I am a silkie on the sea and when I'm far and far frae land my home it is in Sule Skerry.If you look back through the examples shown in the previous sections, you'll see that most of them fall into one of the above meters. If you can't figure out what metre a ballad is in, try speaking it out loud and listening to the rhythm of your speech.
An important thing to note about ballads, however, is that few of them have absolutely perfect metre in all of the verses. Almost every ballad has a verse with one syllable more or less. In Kempowyne, which falls roughly under the 4-4-4-4 metre, a number of lines contain one or two syllables more or less than they should.
Perfect metre isn't essential; what is important is that the metre work with the music. Many ballads which sound rather awkward when they're spoken sound beautiful when set to their proper tunes; the rhythm of the words compliments the movement of the tune so that you don't notice any "imperfections" in the metre.
Older ballads tend more towards the 4-4-4-4 metre, while more of the later period ones have the 4-3-4-3 metre.
She went down below the thorn Fine Flowers in the Valley And there has she her sweet babe born And the green leaves they grow rarely She's ta'en out her little penknife Fine flowers in the valley And there she's twinned her sweet babe of it's life And the green leaves they grow rarely
As I was walking al alane I saw twa corbies makin' mane the tane untae the tither did say where shall we gang and dine the day?It's possible that this type of ballad evolved from the first: the burden was dropped, and two verses compressed into one. Hind Horn is another example of this type of rhyme structure.
Her breath was strang, her hair was lang And twisted twice about the tree And with a swing she came about "Come to Craigy's sea and kiss with me"This type of rhyme is the easiest; there's only one pair of matching words to worry about per verse rather than two, which gives you more freedom in writing the verse content.
Ballad makers weren't picky about their rhymes. Less than perfect rhyme combinations such as again/ten, blame/nane, mair/before, king/nane, wrong/won, and pap/that abound in ballads. In fact, a ballad with perfect rhymes is automatically suspect; as balladry was originally an oral tradition, and dialects varied widely, the words didn't necessarily sound like their written-down version. A singer could make even the most unlikly of rhymes work well.
In addition, many ballads rhyme a word with itself:
And while your body it is on Drawn shall your blood never be But if you touch me tail or fin I swear my brand your death will be
The Maid on the Gallows is the most mind-numbingly repetitious one to be found; Babylon and Lord Randal also use this type of repetition (to much better effect). Even in later ballads that aren't composed entirely of repeated verses, one can often find examples of this in miniature:
O still my bairn, nourice, O still him wi' the pap! He winna still, lady, for this nor for that. O still my bairn, nourice, Oh still him wi' the bell! He winna stil, lady, till ye come down yoursel.
There were twa sisters sat in a bow'r Binnorie, O Binnorie There cam a knight to be their wooer. By the bonnie mill-dams of Binnorie. He courted the eldest wi' glove and ring Binnorie, O Binnorie But he lo'ed the youngest aboon a'thing. By the bonnie mill-dams of Binnorie.
As a rule, of thumb, the older the ballad, the more repetition is involved. Many ballads use more than one type of repetition. Top of Page
Many words are English, spelled as the Scots would pronounce them: "wae" insted of "woe", "doon" instead of "down", "ane" for "one", "mair", "ta'en" and "ye" for "more", "taken" and "you". This is one of the easier ways to "balladize" a song, though care should be taken not to overdo it; speaking ballads out loud and listening to recordings (preferably by Scottish performers, if you can find them) is a good way to get the sound down.
There are also a good number of peculiarly Scottish words to be found in ballads, border ballads especially. "Bairn", "dule", "ken", and "bonnie" are four of the better known ones; there are many others. Unless you're quite familiar with them, it's best not to overload a ballad with them. It can end up sounding awkward (and make it harder for a modern audience to understand.) Again, the best way to get the hang of using Scottish words is to read and listen to the ballads and learn how they're used.
Most transcribers of ballads would readily agree with Andrew Jackson's famous statement: "It's a poor man who can think of only one way to spell a word." Spelling in ballads is iffy at best; words were, for the most part, written down the way they sounded. Sometimes the same word appears in two or even three different spellings. As ballads are meant to sung rather than read, spelling isn't of great importance; if you're going for the "look" of a period ballad, however, perfect spelling is a giveaway of modern origin.
The same goes for grammar, which is sacrified freely for the sake of metre, rhyme and verse form:
I got it not by sea, nor got it by land Nor got I it on a dead man's hand But I got it at my wooing gay And I'll gie't you on your wedding dayTop of Page
As mentioned above, the science of ballad writing was not an exact one. One old scottish woman interviewed around the turn of the 20th century said that as long as the content remained the same, small words and phrases could be changed with impunity.
As balladry was originally an oral tradition, the use of traditional motifs and phrases was heavily relied upon to "flesh out" a ballad story. In a process that has often been compared to Homer's poetic technique and that of other classical poets, the singer had a number of stock phrases--"grassy green", "milk-white steed", "massy gold", "maiden fair", "and an angry man was he," "silk so fine", to name but a few--to use when singing a ballad. If he or she forgot the exact wording of a certain line and it didn't include any action important to the ballad, a stock phrase could easily be slipped in. This process was seen at work by collectors of ballads in Scotland at the end of the last century; two people might give them the same ballad with slight differences; the gist and content were roughly the same, and much of the different material consisted of stock phrases.
A curious thing to note about some ballads--especially the later ones-- is that much of the essential action occurs in the non-rhyming lines, which makes on the spot improvisation easier. Though this is by no means a universal occurance, it happens often enough to be noticeable if you look.
Ballads contain a lot of dialogue. Action is often described in the first person: "As I was walking all alane..."; "Oh where have ye been, my dearest dear"; "Quhy dois your brand sae drip wi' bluid", etc. Even in ballads told from a more impersonal third person point of view, dialogue is always included, usually between the two main characters. As mentioned above in the section on Repetition, one character and the other can speak in alternate verses, or one character will say something in the first two lines of a verse and the other reply in the second two lines. This standard alternation can also be a mnemonic aid. Lord Randal and Edward are composed completely of alternating dialogue, and it can also be found in the Demon Lover, Tam Lin, Lamkin, Cruel Mother, Binnorie, and countless other ballads, as can the extensive use of pairs: pairs of matching verses, an occurance which happens twice, etc.
Another mnemonic aid is the pervasive use of threes in ballads. In Kempowyne, the main character has to win three kisses from Dove Isabel. In Edward, the mother asks her son three times why his sword is so bloody, and after Edward states his intention to go into exile, she asks him what he intends to (1.) Do with his property, (2.) Leave to his children and wife, and (3.) Leave to his mother. In Babylon, three sisters are given a life or death choice, and their fate is described in 3 verses apeice. Lord Wearie is gone three months in Lamkin, and The Wife of Usher's Well is visited by her three sons. Little Sir Hugh's mother calls three times before her son replies. Such examples are endless.