This book of medieval ballads would be a lot better if there were something medieval about it.

To be fair, there are a lot of good old songs here. Many are indicative of the medieval period -- "The Gest of Robyn Hode" (here mis-titled "A Gest of Robin Hood"), "Judas." Others are genuine ballads (not all -- "The Gest of Robyn Hode is a romance," and "Judas" gives no evidence of having been sung).

But they have all been "translated" -- gutted, really. Oh, the English of "Judas" is so antique that readers probably need a translated version. But the "Gest," for instance, is close enough to modern English that glossing would suffice; "translating" it just ruined the meter -- and obscures important points about the original. For example, stanza 3 of the "Gest" in this book refers to "good Scarlet." Guess what: His name was not Scarlet. In the early prints of the "Gest," it's either "Scarlock" or "Scathelock" -- either way, a lock-breaker. Did he become "Will Scarlet" in later Robin Hood stories? Probably. But not in the Gest.

Which brings up another point: The sources aren't indicated. This is especially bad if one is going to hack on the texts. My guess is that Morgan corrupted, er, "translated" the "Gest" from the edition Francis James Child compiled, mostly from the early Advocates and Wynken de Worde copies. But without knowing that, the reader has no way of going back and getting around Morgan's mess.

And that may not even be the worst of the damage she has done. "The Three Ravens" usually occurs in in stanzas with repeats and an internal chorus ("There were three ravens sat on a tree, down a down, hey down, a down, There were three ravens sat on a tree, with a down; There were three ravens sat on a tree, They were black as they might be, with a down, derry derry, derry down, down). The version here prints it in couplets -- no sign of the repeat or the internal chorus. In other words, no way to know what the original looked like.

On top of that, most of these "medieval ballads" cannot be shown to be medieval -- at least if we define the Middle Ages as ending in 1485, as most English historians do. "Judas" is; the manuscript is from the thirteenth century or so. The "Gest" is also from that time; multiple copies were in print by 1530. "The Corpus Christi Carol" shows up in Richard Hill's manuscript, which was being made around 1500. But "The Three Ravens" was published by Ravenscroft in the seventeenth century, and the Percy Folio, the earliest source for much that is here, is from that same era, and many of the songs were first collected even after that. Medieval? What, the Middle Ages lasted till 1800?

Even if you ignore the fact that they don't indicate sources, the introductions to the individual songs are also very short. There really isn't enough information here. Allowing that I am incredibly nitpicky, I just don't see the point of this book. It's not a textbook; a textbook would not have damaged the texts this much and would give more information. It's not a proper sourcebook; since most of the songs here are "Child Ballads," a student who wants to learn something useful will want to go to Francis James Child's The English and Scottish Popular Ballads. It's not a songbook; there are no tunes, and some of the texts are edited to the point where the tune wouldn't fit even if one were printed. And -- as "Judas" and the "Gest" show -- it isn't even a book of ballads. There are a lot of important and useful texts in here. They're a lot more important and useful when found in more important and useful books. ( )