Transcriber's Notes This book contains material in multiple languages, and numerous examples of archaic, non-standard and dialect forms of English. Therefore no attempts to standardize spelling would be appropriate. The only changes to the text are to resolve typographical errors etc. which are listed at the end of the book. Minor corrections to format or punctuation have been made without comment. This Plain Text version of the e-book includes unicode (UTF-8) characters and diacritics which should appear in the following list: ā macron ă ĭ breve ć ń ś ẃ acute accent Č č ě Ř ř Š š ž caron/hacek ȝ yogh ł l with stroke (Polish etc.) Œ œ oe-ligature ş cedilla † dagger or upright cross symbol αβγδε Greek script [a'] and ['s] denote editorial insertions of contracted forms, not special characters: e.g. on page 299 [a'] is an editorial insertion of "a'" (for "all"); on page 309 ['s] is an editorial insertion of "'s" (for "has"?). _underscore symbols_ represent italic typeface ~tilde symbols~ represent roman typeface within italics ALL CAPS represent small caps typeface #number signs# represent bold typeface $dollar symbols$ represent gesperrt (s p a c e d o u t) text ^x or ^{x, y} represents superscript text _x or _{xyz} represents subscript text Bold mark-up is widely used to denote the distinctive font used by the author for ballad version references. Some sections of ballads are set in differently sized type and indicated in the introductions. Usually this is smaller type, but in the case of ballad 39, larger. These passages are indicated by means of further indentation and side-lining (|) in the left margin. Ballad 53 versions M and N are entirely in smaller type, but without explanation. Footnotes have been numbered from [1] to [427] sequentially throughout the whole volume, but are presented at the end of each ballad or section to which they refer. A line of 7 spaced dots indicates a missing line of poetry. A line of 7 spaced asterisks indicates missing poetry material of one or more stanzas; this is distinct from a "thought break" or sub-section separator of 5 widely spaced asterisks such as follow these notes. * * * * * THE ENGLISH AND SCOTTISH POPULAR BALLADS [Illustration] THE ENGLISH AND SCOTTISH POPULAR BALLADS EDITED BY FRANCIS JAMES CHILD IN FIVE VOLUMES VOLUME I NEW YORK DOVER PUBLICATIONS, INC.