Susan Cooper's The Dark Is Rising: not precisely based on a ballad, but incorporates elements of ballad and folklore, including referents to "Good King Wenceslas".
There's a "Haunted Ballads" series of mysteries/ghost stories by Deborah Grabien; I have not read these, but clearly they fall within the category of what you've asked about.
Vera Chapman's The Green Knight: draws specifically on "Gawain and the Green Knight"; see also the other two linked books, The King's Damosel and King Arthur's Daughter.
Adam Stemple's Singer of Souls and Steward of Song: The protagonist is a modern balladeer encountering faerie folk; he's very much an anti-hero in significant respects (read "not necessarily likeable"), and the first book ends on a cliffhanger (I have not yet read the second).
To the extent that Robin Hood is a figure of ballad: Robin of Sherwood by Robin McKinley. I did not like the Robin Hood books and stories by Clayton Emery; there's a lot of other Robin Hood fiction out there, at novel length and shorter. One of the odder but more intriguing items I've run across is The Tale of Marian's Wedding, which has a faux Robin Hood ballad written into it....
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branchandroot
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Date: 2008-06-25 08:08 am (UTC)Susan Cooper's The Dark Is Rising: not precisely based on a ballad, but incorporates elements of ballad and folklore, including referents to "Good King Wenceslas".
There's a "Haunted Ballads" series of mysteries/ghost stories by Deborah Grabien; I have not read these, but clearly they fall within the category of what you've asked about.
Vera Chapman's The Green Knight: draws specifically on "Gawain and the Green Knight"; see also the other two linked books, The King's Damosel and King Arthur's Daughter.
Adam Stemple's Singer of Souls and Steward of Song: The protagonist is a modern balladeer encountering faerie folk; he's very much an anti-hero in significant respects (read "not necessarily likeable"), and the first book ends on a cliffhanger (I have not yet read the second).
To the extent that Robin Hood is a figure of ballad: Robin of Sherwood by Robin McKinley. I did not like the Robin Hood books and stories by Clayton Emery; there's a lot of other Robin Hood fiction out there, at novel length and shorter. One of the odder but more intriguing items I've run across is The Tale of Marian's Wedding, which has a faux Robin Hood ballad written into it....