What is best describes a ballad?

Folk ballads are typically written impersonally, with dark, sordid tones, often on topics of a supernatural, violent, or romantic nature. Traditionally, they were meant to be sung a Capella, and were not connected to one particular poet or bard. This varies from more modern ballads, such as those which arose from the Romantic age of the early 1800's and the folk revival period of the 1960's.

A Ballad stanza is typically in quatrains (four lines) with rhyme sequences of abcb. In literary or formal ballads the lines stick to alternating eight and six syllables. CHABOINKA