BURDEN or BURTHEN. Old songs and ballads frequently had a chorus or motto to each verse, which in the language of the time was called a Burden or Bob. One of the most ancient and most popular was ‘Hey troly loly lo,
’ quoted in ‘Piers Plowman,
’ 1362, and other early songs. It occurs after every line of a song of the time of Edward IV (Sloane MS. No. 1584); and in Isaac Walton's ‘Compleat Angler
’ is the...
