Poems that tell stories. The grim and tragic stories bear testimony to their primitive origins, for true ballads were handed down orally from generation to generation. There were almost no written ballads before the 15th Century, but the ballads themselves are centuries older. Epics are long narrative poems celebrating the deeds of historical or legendary heroes. None written since then as been adjudged equal to them, but epics are still being written.
Romance is a form of vernacular story originally in verse but later in prose.
Romance was developed first in France in the twelfth century and spread through Europe. Medieval Romances dealt with knights, deeds of chivalry and courtly love. They differed from earlier epics in their lack of moral grandeur and seriousness, their episodic, digressive structure and their subjectivity. Romances are often replete with magical events, faeries, dragons, wizards and enchantment. In modern fiction, novels and poems that idealize and are little concerned with realism are called Romances.