LADY DIAMOND
Lady Diamond is an anonymous medieval ballad. The title introduces the protagonist and makes the reader immediately understand the situation takes place in an aristocratic environment. Indeed, the song is about a princess who fell in love with one of her servants. Her father and king disapproved this love and ordered his men to kill that boy. Lady Diamond could not bear the sorrowand died of desperation.
The ballad aims at highlighting the cruelty of the aristocratic rules; although nobles are favoured in most of situations, they are not free to decide about their own lives. From the modern point of view, it also tells us about the condition of women in medieval society; regardless they are noble or not, they are obliged to obey men.
According to the typical structure, the ballad is made up of four-line stanzas, generally with alternate rhyme. Dialectal and concrete expressions (lass, pin, ails, muckle fame) and iconic language (l. 11-12) are used, in order to make also less-cultured people understand the story. For the same reason there are also many similes and metaphors (like a wandering ghost). Sound devices (alliteration, assonance, incremental repetition and repetition) are greatly employed, since they were very helpful to memorize the text.

THE HOUSE CARPENTER
The House Carpenter is an anonymous medieval ballad. It narrates the story of a wife of a house carpenter. One day, an unknown seaman came to her and told her he loved her. He invited her to go away with him, claiming she would be at the command of six ships and one hundred and ten men. First, she was reluctant, but then she decided to go; she kissed her baby and left. Only after two weeks, she regretted having done this. A few days later, their ship sank and they both died. The woman hoped to reach Heaven, but he went to Hell instead.
The ballad aims at teaching the listeners the right actions to do to obtain salvation and provides an example of bad behaviour. The seaman represents the tempter devil: therefore, the events can be compared to the biblical episode of Eve and the snake. As the snake tempted Eve to eat the apple and brought her to commit sin, the sailor induced the woman to betray her husband and brought her to Hell.
The ballad is made up of fourteen four-line stanza; even lines are longer than odd lines. There is a pressing rhythm and an evident musicality. Repetition (for example, well met, well met at line 1), incremental repetition (l.5 and l.10), alliteration (grass grows green), occasional rhymes and assonances are used very frequently. This is used both to ease memorization and to create amusement the listeners