A few years ago I encountered a group of earnest school teachers from a midland county adjacent to Leicestershire. They had set out, without much knowledge of folk song, to find folk songs from their county and to 'inflict' them on any audiences that could be persuaded to listen (mainly school children I would imagine - captive audiences!).

Needless to say they didn't find the very local songs they imagined were lurking in the archives (see Malcolm Douglas's post above). What they did find, though, were several (often dire) vernacular poems that should have been left in the archives! They proceeded to set these poems to music. I'd like to say that the result was eminently forgetable - but, unfortunately, I'm still struggling to forget it!