p. 9  "The House Carpenter"

Right from the title the reader can see that an house carpenter, or what it represents, will be important in the ballad.

The ballad is made up of fourteen quatrains.  There is a alternate rhyme scheme but it is not regular. The story is told only with dialog. There are many repetition of words, especially the word "well" is on the start of many stanzas but the words "love", "sea" and "carpenter" are used a lot too.

The ballad is a tragic love story and there are a lot of alliterations, repetitions and incremental repetitions since ballads were an oral form of poetry and these devices made it easier to remember. The story is composed in informal English, according to the popular origins of ballads.

The story is about a woman who decided to leave her husband and her baby to go with another man, which was very rich. Her lover says he has given up the chance to marry the king's daughter and refused wealth to marry her. The woman is not convinced to go with him, so she ask him if he is rich. The lover has a lot of ships a sailor men so the woman decides to go with him and leaves her baby and husband. During the travel the woman misses her baby and after three weeks the ship on which they are travelling sinks. At the end they die and see the hills of Heaven and the Hills of Hell where they will go.

The main characters are the woman and her lover. The house carpenter does not take part in the story, but he has a crucial background role. He represents the betrayed husband and the sin of adultery. This is important since in the Middle Ages religion was very influent on people and they were always worried about their spiritual life. This is confirmed in the last two stanzas where appear the Heaven and the Hell, and the two lovers are condemned to Hell. The woman does not seem to be worried about her sin and she only misses her baby. The love between the lovers is also criticized since the woman is more interested in her lover's wealth instead of his love.