Glossary

ballad

Subject: 

  • English First Additional Language
  • English Home Language

originally folk songs, committed to memory; songs or poems that are stories (that is, they are narrative) and for which the author is often unknown. The most common ballad form is a quatrain (a 4-line stanza) in which the second and fourth lines rhyme, e.g. the childrenâ??s ballad, Sir Patrick Spens.