Here's a question: how many currently well-known traditional songs verifiably originated in the nineteenth century? There's a (revived) thread at the moment about Lord Franklin, which is one example (the expedition itself was in 1845) - but how many others are there? I'm talking, loosely, about the kind of songs that survived long enough to be revived; the kind of songs you'd find in the repertoire of Peter Bellamy or Shirley Collins or the Dransfields, or in Jon Boden's AFSAD, or in the new PBEFS. Thinking about this category the other day, I wondered if the Greenland Whale Fisheries was an example... it isn't (eighteenth-century). The Dolphin? Eighteenth century. Sam Hall? Eighteenth century. 'Historical figure' songs are effectively date-stamped, and several of them are nineteeth-century - see Lord Franklin, or anything about Nelson or Napoleon. What else, though?
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