The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #172643   Message #4180249
Posted By: Robert B. Waltz
29-Aug-23 - 01:29 PM
Thread Name: Tune Req: The original tune of Willy o' Winsbury?
Subject: RE: Tune Req: The original tune of Willy o' Winsbury?
By the way, at the risk of making myself sound like a bloody bore (a serious risk, since most people probably already considered me one :-), I will point out that Child should not be considered a significant source for tunes of the Child Ballads. Many collectors at that time did not print tunes, but some did, and Child printed only a selection of those, not curated and not collated or compared as he did with his texts. Child's tunes are (mostly) genuinely traditional but are frequently not typical.

Those wishing to do research on Child Ballad tunes really must start from Bronson, not Child.

For those looking to find tunes of Child Ballads not printed by Bronson, the Traditional Ballad Index can be helpful, since all tunes of Child Ballads have their Bronson codes. Taking "Willie o' Winsbury" as an example, Greig/Duncan, volume 5, has 7 tunes for "Willie" not cited by Bronson (at least from Greig/Duncan). Karpeles-FolkSongsFromNewfoundland has four tunes, only one cited by Bronson. Leach-FolkBalladsSongsOfLowerLabradorCoast has two tunes, neither cited by Bronson. Genevieve Lehr had a tune not cited by Bronson. Kenneth Peacock had two tunes not known to Bronson. And Sam Henry had a tune not known to Bronson.

I have not tried to compare these tunes with Bronson's tune-groups; since no one really knows how he did it (except maybe internal genius), it would be hard to try.