Those who are a bit confused about how songs "qualify" to enter the waulking-song repetoire may be helped by the following explanation: Waulking is an exhausting and lengthy process of beating heavy, wet, stinking cloth against hard wood to soften and tighten it. Naturally, songs with a good rhythm were used to make the work more bearable and keep up the waulkers' stamina. Some songs in the repetoire (sp?) are several centuries old, and some are composed on the spot as people add in humorous local commentary. Because it is considered terrible luck to sing the same song twice over a piece of cloth as it is waulked, songs from a wide range of traditions have been drawn in. Ancient bardic poems may be sung in the same set with a song teasing Mary about her foppish current sweetheart with the badly-made shoes. Waulking songs have kept alive the music of other traditional rhythmic work as those types of work have died out. Basically, any song that keeps the right rhythm can become a waulking song!

A h-uile beannachd leibh,

--Cuilionn

By the way, an excellent waulking song for kids is "Birlinn Ghoraidh Chrobhain" or "The Galley of Godred Crovan." A friend of mine recalls learning it in her primary school in Scotland.