Jim,
With all due respect to Richard Bridge, I think it was me, not him, who was worried about becoming a "singing text book" (although I didn't rise to such a vivid metaphor).

There's a link to Steve Winick's "Reynardine" article in Folkiedave's post to this thread at 11.28 on Feb 4th.

Fascinating to hear more about the background of "Pretty Polly". A couple of questions: did Bill Cassidy's sobriety or otherwise affect his delivery of the song? I'm thinking particularly about the pacing, and the improvisational nature of the ornaments. And were the truncated verses, where the he altered the tune (e.g. "Get you down, get you down") a consistent feature of his performance of this song - to me, it's another instance where an "imperfection" in the singer's recollection of the text actually enhances the drama.

So Bill Cassidy is still alive....... when I first heard that recording of him it sounded like something from another aeon, another world. Thanks for bringing him to my ears. And if anyone reading this is wondering what we are talking about, go and buy "From Puck to Appleby" and find out!