MMario re the ealier link - only if you scrolled up!! ;-) (why is it that links seem to go into the middle of a thread??).

I knew when that earlier thread came up that I'd seen some info. on this . . The Watersons recorded the song on their first LP, and they are widely credited with popularising it. That recording features on a Topic LP sampler (TPS 166) we have, with no date (but certainly predating Palmer's comments of 1988). In the sleeve notes Bill Leader comments on visiting Padstow (Cornwall, in the SW of England) to record the Hobby Horse celebrations. He says that Three Score and Ten was the song he heard most often, a local singer having learnt it from the Watersons and popularised it in the area. He gives the storm's date and author of the song [as Delph] but makes no mention of the broadside. Palmer says that the Watersons learnt the song from "a recording of some Whitby singers that Mr & Mrs Huddleston, the Yorkshire song collectors" had made.

G.