"ARE YOU SUGGESTING RENARDINE EXISTED AND lLOYD ADDED TO IT"
I'm not suggesting it, I'm stating it as a fact.
Lloyd did nothing more than singers have done throughout history and adapted it for his own purposes as a singer - nothing wrong with that.
The problems arise when and if singers make academic or folkloristic claims on them - some say Bert did, I don't know in this particular case.
The final product was not partly written with the intention of it "becoming a folk song" - it was already a folk song when Bert got it, it was current here in the West of Ireland long before he got his hands on it.
Bert actually wrote a couple of songs, not many, but he never claimed them to be folk songs.
Nothing pedantic about that, just a series of facts.
Jim Carroll