The elf is occasionally portrayed in a positive light, such as the Queen of Elphame in the ballad Thomas the Rhymer, but many examples exist of elves of sinister character, frequently bent on rape and murder, as in the Tale of Childe Rowland, or the ballad Lady Isabel and the Elf-Knight, in which the Elf-Knight bears away Isabel to murder her.

In this ballad, a young woman is warned that the elf Tam Lin is known to haunt a place called Carterhaugh, and that all who go there must lose either an article of clothing or their virginity to Tam Lin.

In the oldest extant version of this ballad ( circa 1600-1650 ), an elf threatens to abduct a young woman to be his lover unless she can perform an impossible task ; she responds with a list of tasks which he must first perform, thus evading rape.

Set on, as the title suggests, the Fourth of July in Asbury Park, New Jersey, the song is a powerful love ballad, dedicated to one Sandy and describing the depressing atmosphere that threatens to smother the love between the singer and Sandy.

He was also at the same time gaining practical experience as a safe breaker and highwayman, and learning how to shoot to kill from a Neanderthal convicted murderer named Gene Geary, later committed to Chester Asylum as a homicidal maniac, but whose eyes misted with tears when the young Dion sang a ballad about an Irish mother in his clear and syrupy tenor.

The song Far Away in Australia sung by the Irish ballad group The Wolfe Tones portrays the sorrow of two young Irish lovers who are separated when the male youth is forced to make his living far away in Australia, leaving his girl behind.

In the essay, Wright described how, as a young girl, she misheard the last line of the first stanza from the 17th-century ballad " The Bonny Earl O ' Moray ".

The ballad, like almost all of the poems in the Alice books, has no young protagonists, is rather dark, and does not end happily.

This ballad farce was performed by a children's company at Madame Violante's booth in Dame Street, Dublin in 1731, and featured a young Peg Woffington.

In the well-known 16th century English folk ballad " The Three Ravens ", the term " fallow doe " is used metaphorically, as meaning " a young woman ".

Some longer versions of the ballad explain Barbara's " cruelty " by saying that she ( mistakenly ) believed that the young man slighted her first.

The most popular of his literary works is the above-mentioned Canti di Milosao ( Songs of Milosao ), known in Albanian as Këngët e Milosaos, a long romantic ballad portraying the love of Milosao, a fictitious young nobleman in fifteenth-century Shkodra ( Scutari ), who has returned home from Thessalonica.

The song is a ballad encouraging young women to find love while they are still young and beautiful, for life is short.

" After he recorded, Phillips asked Keisker to note down the young man's name, which she did along with her own commentary: " Good ballad singer.

The first song of this title was of English origin, called “ Foggy, Foggy Dew ”, and is a lamentful ballad of a young lover.

In the essay, Wright described how, as a young girl, she misheard the final line from the ballad.

He writes version after version of the same ballad, " Beautiful Maria of My Soul ", until by chance one day he encounters Dolores ( Maruschka Detmers ), a shy but attentive young woman who wishes to become a schoolteacher.

Said Allmusic about the song, " Rarely, if ever, had one so young sung with so much authority and grace, investing this achingly tender ballad with wisdom and understanding far beyond his years ".

The song " Buachaill Ón Éirne " is a famous Irish ballad about a young boy from the Erne area.

Yale Daily News writer Catherine Halaby called it a " well-executed ballad ", while saying, " it comes across as a hybrid of advice to her young female fans on how to deal with puberty, and an explanation of her girly but not childlike attitude.

" Banks of the Ohio " is a 19th century murder ballad, written by unknown authors, in which " Willie " invites his young lover for a walk during which she rejects his marriage proposal.

The ballad tells the story of a headstrong woman who is frustrated because her father seems to love her sister more than her.

Both man and woman in this ballad invoke said powers in naming these herbs: mildness to soothe the bitterness of their relationship, spiritual strength to endure being apart from each other, faithfulness and lastly encouragement, to fulfill the impossible tasks given.

The festival, held annually in the town of Tralee in County Kerry, takes its inspiration from a nineteenth century ballad of the same name about a woman called Mary, who because of her beauty was called The Rose of Tralee.

The narrative ballad " Guess Who I Saw Today " has June Carroll telling her husband that she saw him with another woman.

It also contains a rare Lightfoot foray into the protest song genre, in the form of the longest track on the album, " The Patriot's Dream ," a ballad describing the enthusiasm of soldiers on a troop train " riding off to glory in the spring of their years ," followed by the pathos of a woman receiving news that her husband's aircraft had been shot down in combat.

The ballad concerns a woman from Usher's Well, who sends her three sons away, to school in some versions, and a few weeks after learns that they had died.

The woman, who narrates the ballad, tells the story of being compelled by her parents ' misfortune to marry Robin Gray while her lover is away.

The song is derived from Homer's Odyssey, filtered through the 17th century English folk ballad tradition, and tells the story of a prospective suitor who asks a woman if she will marry him.

Produced by Masser, the song is a ballad that portrays its protagonist ( Ross ) as a black woman who becomes a successful Rome fashion designer.

#" Dim Sum Girl ", a love ballad about the heartbreak of Hong Kong Fever from his former love, a dim sum girl ( woman pushing around carts of dim sum in Chinese restaurants ).

A pop ballad, " Someday ( I Will Understand )" lyrics refer to a feeling of empowerment as a pregnant woman.

A first-person ballad about a woman wishing for her husband to come back home from fighting war overseas, " Come Home Soon " also inspired sales of special " Come Home Soon " bracelets, the proceeds of which went to the American Red Cross.

" Me Quiero Ir " is a romantic ballad that shows a woman in total control of her emotions.

The album included her first big hit, " That's the Way I've Always Heard It Should Be ", a sombre ballad centered on a woman pondering marriage with a sense of both inevitability and entrapment.

* Juan Maria Solare's piano ballad " Jura ser anomalía " ( literally " he / she swears to be an anomaly ") is an anagram of the composer's full name.

" Alternatively, they might be folded to make small cheap books or " chapbooks " which often drew on ballad stories.

The satiric elements of ballad opera can be seen in some modern musicals such as Chicago and Cabaret.

An upright bassist auditioning for a blues band might be asked to play in a Swing-style walking bassline, a rockabilly-style " slapping " bassline ( in which the strings are percussively struck against the fingerboard ) and a 1950s ballad with long held notes.

The Yuefu is a folk ballad or a poem written in the folk ballad style, and the number of lines and the length of the lines could be irregular.

Hereward appears in a ballad much like Robin Hood and the Potter, and as the Hereward ballad is older, it appears to be the source.

No extant ballad actually shows Robin Hood " giving to the poor ", although in a " A Gest of Robyn Hode " Robin does make a large loan to an unfortunate knight which he does not in the end require to be repaid ; and later in the same ballad Robin Hood states his intention of giving money to the next traveller to come down the road if he happens to be poor.

Any ballad may be older than the oldest copy which happens to survive, or descended from a lost older ballad.

Some ballads, such as Erlinton, feature Robin Hood in some variants, where the folk hero appears to be added to a ballad pre-existing him and in which he does not fit very well.

The ballad Sir Patrick Spens has sometimes been supposed to be connected to Margaret's ill-fated voyage.

The song is in the folk tradition and may be thought by some to be a traditional ballad when song by others.

Significant exceptions before 1800 can be found in Purcell's works, German opera of Hamburg during the Baroque, ballad opera and Singspiel of the 18th century, etc.

Most notably he makes several appearances in James Joyce's Finnegans Wake, and some have posited that the title, taken from the street ballad " Finnegan's Wake ", may also be a blend of " Finn again is awake ," referring to his eventual awakening to defend Ireland.

According to Stephen Holden, a writer in The New York Times, " Many of Hart's ballad lyrics conveyed a heart-stopping sadness that reflected his conviction that he was physically too unattractive to be lovable.

The dance tune Cumberland Gap may be derived from the tune that accompanies the Scottish ballad Bonnie George Campbell.

* Francis James Child collected fourteen variants in The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, but the summary of Child Ballad 39A is considered to be the earliest ( Another Child ballad, Burd Ellen and Young Tamlane has no connection with this ballad except for the similarity of the heroes ' names.

* The multi-faceted novel Red Shift by Alan Garner can be read as a subtle reworking of the ballad.