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Date Posted: 22:32:21 05/28/07 Mon
Author: Adriana Assis
Subject: Task 3

Some Scottish folktales have part of their narratives rebuilt by ballad which is a convenient short definition that seems a song and tells a story. Ballad is an interesting instrument to catch the attention of the reader because it escapes from the linear form to poetic and sentimental one. Specially in Scottish tales ballad is present and becomes the story softer to read and easier to memorize.
The ballad rhythm is the first reason to get the Scottish tale in memory because the reader seems sing a song, not just reads a simple narrative. Consequently the story keeps more the reader´s attention. The Scottish rhythm is regular and has a repeated pattern of sounds in its ballad which gives movement in the story and beats automatically in the body who is reading. That is a particular feeling caused by this rhythm what differs from the other narratives.
The other reason to make the reading easier and always to remind it is the refrain. In the ballad the refrain has an incremental repetition, as a cliché, in which a line or stanza is repeated. Some of Scottish finest modern storytellers, such as Alasdair MacLean, Andrew Lang or Elizabeth Grierson include this tool in their tales.
A good example from ballad in the Scottish tales is showed in 'The Well O´The World´s End' by Elizabeth Grierson where a girls tried to help her grandmother looking for water for her and met a frog on the way and promised to get marry him. But, after that, she regretted and tried to kill it because the frog always bothered her and began to sing this song:
"Oh, gie me my supper, my hinnie, my heart,
Oh, gie me my supper, my ain true love;
Remember the promise that you and I made
Down i´the meadow, where we two met."

This refrain is repeated along the tale until the girl sees that the frog becomes a handsome young prince and they got married and she became a princess. By the way, the repetition express the tale as an oral imitation.
However, the ballad in the Scottish tales consists of great elements for getting the story fluently and not hard to keep it in memory. Moreover, the reader has more pleasure in this way than the only linear style.


Source:
CUDDON, J. A. A Glossary of Literature Terms. New York:
Penguin Books, 1979.
JAVIE, Gordon. Scottish Folk and Fairy Tales. London:
Penguin Books, 1996.

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