Treading the Dance: Medieval Danish Folk Ballads

Described by Seamus Heaney as "beautifully produced and seriously enjoyable", this is a bilingual, illustrated collection of medieval Danish folk ballads. In these pages, the English speaking reader will discover many ideas, images and themes familiar from British folk song and literature including desperate lovers, magical animals, and bloodthirsty nobles. The Danish ballads are important because they show us key aspects of the Northern European sensibility in a vernacular style and were the first European ballads to be collected and written down. Over the centuries, the ballads have inspired songwriters, poets and playwrights, served the needs of World War II resistance fighters and even formed the basis for a radio jingle.

For the Romantic poets in both Denmark and England, the revived interest in the ballads sprang from their ability in both style and content to produce a powerful narrative drama that taps into fundamental aspects of human experience.