The early history of our purely romantic ballads, such as "Clerk Sanders," "The Douglas Tragedy," "The Dowie Dens o' Yarrow," "Young Beichan," "The Wife of Usher's Well," "Fair Annie," "Tamlane," and many more, is obscure. They have analogues in all European countries, from Greece to Scandinavia, and in popular tales, the oldest things in literature. Their extraordinary charm, their touch of supernatural terror, their simplicity, their recurring formulæ of words, their brevity and pathos, make them things apart. The heart of humanity is their maker, though in each country where they exist local allusions and local colour have been given to them by the singers. When such ballads have been worked over by some hack of the early Press they are often worthless; the best have been collected from oral recitation, or old written copies. There can be no universal theory of the origin of ballads; each ballad must be examined by itself before we can say whether it is a popularized shape of a literary romance, or a versified "Märchen" worked over by many hands in many ages, or a mere mythical news-letter, like "King James and Brown"; or the work, like "Otterburne," of a humbler poet than the minstrels of the Stanleys, but a better poet; or one whose work has been improved by the modifications of later singers; or whether the thing is a dance song, contributed to by each dancer in turn; or a brief and beautiful lament like "The Bonny Earl o' Murray". The best traditional ballads have the colour and fragrance of wild flowers. Curious and very ancient traits of popular usages may be gathered from the songs of merrymaking, for example in the songs of Ivy, the badge of the women, and of Holly, the badge of the men. Girls and lads bring ivy and holly into halls and a fight ensues, the girls are thrust out into the cold. "Nay, nay Ivy it may not be, I wis, For Holly must have mastery, as the manner is." The girls burned the "Holly boy" of the men, the men burned the "Ivy maid" of the girls. This ancient feud of the sexes, and of their patron birds, exists among the tribes of South-Eastern Australia, the men killing the bird of the women, the women the bird of the men, and an amorous kind of combat follows.