Project Gutenberg 2013-09-27 Public domain in the USA. 228 Child, Francis James 1825 1896 Child, F. J. (Francis James) English and Scottish Ballads, Volume VIII Wikipedia page about this book: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_Child_Ballads Produced by Simon Gardner, Dianna Adair, Louise Davies and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by the Digital & Multimedia Center, Michigan State University Libraries.) "English and Scottish Ballads, Volume VIII" by Francis James Child is a collection of traditional ballads written in the mid-19th century. This volume continues an exploration of folk narratives and songs from England and Scotland, featuring a variety of tales that often include themes of love, trickery, and moral lessons. The ballads are rich with historical context and showcase the oral storytelling traditions of the time. The opening of this volume presents "King John and the Abbot of Canterbury," a comedic tale involving a contest of wits between King John and the Abbot. The king confronts the abbot about his lavish spending and challenges him to answer three riddles, using clever humor to explore themes of power and cleverness. The abbot, initially at a loss, seeks help from his shepherd, who ultimately disguises himself to save the abbot from execution. This narrative sets the tone for a collection filled with engaging stories that reflect social dynamics and the wit of the common people. (This is an automatically generated summary.) Reading ease score: 88.6 (6th grade). Easy to read. en Ballads, English -- England -- Texts Ballads, Scots -- Scotland -- Texts PR Text Browsing: Culture/Civilization/Society Browsing: Literature Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore Category: British Literature 736347 2025-06-17T16:26:32.870792 text/html 748901 2013-09-28T10:40:44 text/html; charset=iso-8859-1 273763 2025-06-17T16:27:00.543168 application/epub+zip 280608 2025-06-17T16:26:41.613771 application/epub+zip 261923 2025-06-17T16:26:37.657787 application/epub+zip 655157 2025-06-17T16:27:08.600118 application/x-mobipocket-ebook 571879 2025-06-17T16:26:55.314214 application/x-mobipocket-ebook 539705 2022-09-20T04:21:24.037784 application/x-mobipocket-ebook 437840 2023-09-19T07:08:27.217666 text/plain 15806 2025-06-17T16:27:08.806115 application/rdf+xml 17073 2025-06-17T16:26:38.404768 image/jpeg 3801 2025-06-17T16:26:38.033787 image/jpeg 260060 2025-06-17T16:26:32.913806 application/octet-stream application/zip Archives containing the RDF files for *all* our books can be downloaded at https://book.klll.cc/wiki/Gutenberg:Feeds#The_Complete_Project_Gutenberg_Catalog en.wikipedia