The word "ballad" is admittedly of very wide significance. Meaning originally "a song intended as the accompaniment to a dance," it was afterwards applied to "a light simple song of any kind" with a leaning towards the sentimental or romantic; and, in its present use, is defined by Dr Murray as "a simple spirited poem in short stanzas, in which some popular story is graphically told." Passing over the obsolete sense of "a popular song specially celebrating or scurrilously attacking some person or institution," we may note that Dr Johnson calls a ballad "a song," and quotes a statement from Watts that it once "signified a solemn and sacred song as well as a trivial, when Solomon's Song was called the 'The Ballad of Ballads,' but now it is applied to nothing but trifling verse." Ballad-collectors, however, have never strictly regarded any one of these definitions, and to me their catholicity seems worthy of imitation. I have demanded no more of a ballad than that it should be a simple spirited narrative; and, though excluding the pure lyrics and metrical romances found in Percy's Reliques or elsewhere, I have been guided in doubtful cases rather by intuition than by rule. I have included poems written in every variety of metre except blank verse, and even the latter may seem to be represented by Blake's Fair Elinor. Moreover, this is a collection of poems, not of archaeological specimens or verses on great historic events; and the ballads have been chosen according to my judgment of their artistic merits.

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The Child Ballads are traditional ballads from England and Scotland, collected and anthologized by Francis James Child during the second half of the 19th century. The collection contains examples from the 13th century onward. However, the majority of the ballads date to the seventeenth and eighteenth century. Although some have very ancient influences, only a handful can be definitively traced to before 1600. Child Ballads are heavier and darker than other ballads. The topics of the ballads are romance, enchantment, devotion, determination, obsession, jealousy, forbidden love, hallucination, the suppressed truth, supernatural experiences and deeds, half-human creatures, teenagers, family strife, the boldness of outlaws, authority, lust, death, karma, punishment, sin, morality, vanity, folly, dignity, nobility, and many others. They contain stories of national heroes like Robin Hood and mysterious creatures like elves and fairies.