Coming at the end of the Napoleonic era, the battle of Waterloo was a huge event and a field day for ballad writers. It took months for the fate of some soliders to reach home. Loved ones desperately wanted to know whether soldiers made it through the big battle. There would have been many entries into the "best ballad of 1815" competition. Once those broadsides were circulated and committed to memory, the true folk process took over.

What the Roud and Laws indexes try (and tried) to do are establish a provenance for each of the ballads about Waterloo. Confusing the issue to some extent is the oft mentioned and not always fully understood folk process, which can merge different ballads and songs into one.

I've been to Waterloo in Belgium four or five times. Every time I go, I sing a song or two. I guess the one I've sung most shows as "The Plains of Waterloo (II)" in Ken Peacock's Songs of the Newfoundland Outports. The great Oliver "O.J." John Abbott sang it so well in Ontario, and all of the great ballad singers of the 1970s followed after him. I sing it myself.

Now that war is over, let peace and understanding reign. Good question GEST. Fine comments Malcolm Douglas.