Many songs on the Heart Of The Hills audio CD trilogy Vol. 1 - 3, a collection of mountain ballads by singer-songwriter Mardell McCombs, are akin to the "Child Ballads".

The Child ballads are traditional ballads from England and Scotland and their American variants, anthologized by Francis James Child during the second half of the 19th century. Their lyrics, and Child's studies of them, were published as The English and Scottish Popular Ballads in 1860.

The majority of the ballads date to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Although some are claimed to have very ancient influences, only a handful can be traced to before 1600.

Mardell, as a child, roamed freely in the woods and hills of Appalachia, hearing many of these, and variants of these, old songs from West Virginia and Carolina mountain folk. Mardell has put tunes to, and sung the lyrics of these ballads as she remembers them in this three-album music collection; Heart Of The Hills - Vol. 1 - 3.

Mardell does not claim that the songs in the Heart Of The Hills trilogy are authentic reproductions of Child's research or that they are all from the Child Ballad Collection. They are her interpretation of what she heard, felt, saw, and loved as a child.

Ballads are an exciting insight into the human condition of centuries past. Song and storytelling were the news and entertainment of the times, the method that history, legends, wisdom, morality, and ethics were passed from generation to generation. Storytelling in verse and song was the method for passing knowledge and keeping the tradition alive in a time when few people could read or write.

On one extreme, some ballads recount identifiable historical people in known events, embellished for dramatic effect. On the other hand, some differ from fairy tales solely by their being songs and in verse, and some have been recast in prose as fairy tales.

VOL 1
In these ballads, dating mainly from 1600 to 1700’s you will find the following tales:

• The ghost of a dearly departed summoned from the grave gives doleful warnings.
• A fair maid receives nocturnal visitations from a shape-shifting sea creature.
• Plus, a serial killer, murder most foul, infanticide, love, lust, betrayal, and the mother-in-law from hell!
• Not to mention the curious case of the Little Pig.

VOL 2
In volume 2, you will find:

• Noble knights and fair ladies.
• Ignoble knights and faithless ladies.
• A dastardly villain gets his comeuppance!
• The sorrows and pleasures of love.
• Bonnie Prince Charlie takes the cake.
• A lively groundhog hunt. (Hey, Grandpa! What’s for supper?)
• And the ever-popular talking parrot.

VOL 3
In this final trilogy of mountain ballads:

• More medieval melodrama!
• Including, but not limited to-
• Murder, mysticism, magic, marriage, tragic love, and cruel vengeance.
• An elfin knight, a wicked sister, and a creepy town.
• Another talking bird. (A very fine bird.)
• And a ram worthy of P. T. Barnum.