For Labor Day you have plenty of time. Why don't you take any song from a comedy by William Shakespeare, make up a tune, add the chords and sing them? (We don't know what melody they used for most of his songs.) Hey, how about "It was a lover and his lass?" We do know the music for that.

This way, the words would be beautiful and fun. So much of that old stuff is morbid. Who wants to go to a festival and listen to songs about drownings and stabbings?

At Renaissance events where I love, many peroformers play foist Scottish and Irish stuff from the 18th-19th Century to the unsuspecting people, so obviously some latitude is allowed.