Stories from the Ballads, Told to the Children: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

Stories from the Ballads, Told to the Children, credited to Mary Esther Miller MacGregor, is available as a LibriVox volunteer audiobook. This guide identifies the recording, its source summary and its audio tracks.

About the work

The LibriVox catalogue summary, preserved with the recording, reads:

LibriVox recording of Stories from the Ballads, Told to the Children by Mary Esther Miller MacGregor. Read in English by Librivox volunteers Listen, children, for you will wish to hear where I found the tales which I have told you in this little book. It is long, oh! so long ago, that they were sung up hill and down dale by wandering singers who soon became known all over the country as minstrels, or ofttimes, because they would carry with them a harp, as harpers. In court, in cottage, by princes and by humble folk, everywhere, by every one the minstrels were greeted with delight. To such sweet music did they sing the songs or ballads which they made or perchance had heard, to such sweet music, that those who listened could forget nor tale nor tune. In those far-off days of minstrelsy the country was alive with fairies. Over the mountains, through the glens, by babbling streams and across silent moors, the patter of tiny feet might be heard, feet which had strayed from Elfinland. It was of these little folk and of their visits to the homes of mortals that the minstrels sang. Sterner songs too were theirs, songs of war and bloodshed, when clan fought with clan and lives were lost and brave deeds were done. Of all indeed that made life glad or sad, of these the minstrels sang. From town to village, from court to inn they wandered, singing the old songs, adding verses to them here, dropping lines from them there, singing betimes a strain unheard before, until at length the day came when the songs were written down. It was in the old books that thus came to be written that I first found these tales, and when you have read them perhaps you will wish to go yourself to the same old books, to find many another song of love and hate, of joy and sorrow. - Summary by Mary Macgregor

Recording facts

• Recording title: Stories from the Ballads, Told to the Children
• Author credits: Mary Esther Miller MacGregor
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 7
• Listed recording duration: 2:00:41

Track guide

1. 01 - The Young Tamlane — 13:21
2. 02 - Hynde Etin — 14:33
3. 03 - Hynde Horn — 17:33
4. 04 - Thomas the Rhymer — 19:37
5. 05 - Lizzie Lindsay — 23:01
6. 06 - The Gay Goshawk — 19:40
7. 07 - The Laird o'Logie — 12:56

Listen to this recording

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Source and rights

This is a record from LibriVox's official Internet Archive collection, with a public-domain licence recorded in its metadata. LibriVox's policy includes its catalogue summaries as well as its recordings. Its public-domain assessment follows United States law; copyright status can differ elsewhere. The summary and track facts are reproduced and reformatted from that record. Dates attached to the archive upload are not treated as original book publication dates.