THE ballad “The Lamented Lovers” begins with the death of a romantic relationship and ends in the death of both lovers. In between, the rejecting lover is haunted both figuratively and literally by her former lover, who has died of heartbreak. The rejecting lover laments her decision to break off the relationship, and ultimately the guilt she feels for doing so kills her. While melodramatic and sensational, “The Lamented Lovers” is not an anomaly. Among the ballads that feature ghosts in the University of California Santa Barbara's English Broadside Ballad Archive, 28 of the 39 ballads featuring ghosts, or 72% of those ballads, share important similarities to “The Lamented Lovers.” I consider these ballads to make up a tale-type, a term that I borrow from Folklore studies, and call that tale-type Haunted Lovers’ ballads. As Alan Dundes explains, ”… a tale-type is a composite plot synopsis corresponding in exact verbatim detail to no one individual version but at the same time encompassing to some extent all of the extant versions of that folktale.” I prefer using the term tale-type over genre because tale-type anticipates variation. In contrast, genre often implies rigid adherence to defining features. While Haunted Lovers’ ballads share many motifs, or plot elements, as I will lay out, I also recognize that there is variation within Haunted Lovers’ ballads and that my definition is not a strict one.

I define Haunted Lovers’ ballads by their plot structure. Because many characters in the ballads are unnamed, in this article I will use the term false lover to reference characters in the ballads who have broken off the relationship central to Haunted Lovers’ ballads. When I use the term true lover, I am referencing the characters in Haunted Lovers’ ballads who have been rejected by the false lovers. The standard plot looks like this: At the beginning of these ballads, the couple seem to be in a stable relationship. The pair often have already exchanged tokens or assurances of love, such as gold coins or rings. Yet despite the outward signs that the couple is about to be married, shortly into the ballad one of the lovers, of either gender, rejects the other.