Thank you for the welcome, everyone! Delighted to hear you are going to be singing again, Cuilionn - athibest!

I am not going to get into the "who wrote the English ballads" saga except to mote that most of the 'professional' singers and musicians of the time, i.e. those for whom it was their living, were not of the aristocracy. They were at least as likely to pick up tunes, stories and fragments in the cottage as the castle.

Anyway, to get briefly back to Jeannie and the Mattie Groves question. As many of you know there is a major project
http://www.tobarandualchais.co.uk/ to put the recordings held in The School of Scottish Studies, the BBC Gaelic archive and the Canna Collections online.

Jeannie Robertson seems to have recorded Child 81 twice for the SoSS, once listed as Mattie Groves and once listed as Lord Darnell. Sadly, I did not get the job of cataloguing either version but both will be available sometime in the near, we hope, future.

Just in the passing, like most great ballad singers Jeannie loved songs and singing and she gave as much feeling to a blues number, a sentimental Victorian ballad or a rich piece of ribaldry as she gave to Lord Lovat. One of the jaw-dropping moments for me was when I came across the recording of her singing the art song "The Snowy Breasted Pearl". It was a stunning performance and it seems a shame that she was discouraged from including this type of song in her concerts.

Mind you, having said that, I once saw her at an event in Stonehaven when she gave "There Goes My Heart" the full treatment.........