'Historical' Ballads

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 03 May 11 - 11:36 AM

Ah yes, I see. Steve and I are still delving into hitherto inaccessible 18thc collections currently and hopefully we might come across something. Of course the further you go back the bigger the chunk of printed sheets that didn't survive.

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: Brian Peters
Date: 03 May 11 - 11:30 AM

"I see no reason why it [the 17th C broadside] wasn't a rewrite by Laurence Price as claimed by him, which would make it about 1650-70."

"If the Williams/Hill Martin/McQueen versions turn out to be survivals from the 15th century version without intervening print that's a remarkable, but not unique, survival."

What I was driving at was whether there was a version - possibly a broadside - preceding Price's, using the old riddles set in the three sisters / diabolic visitor storyline, which then went on to spawn all of the oral Devil versions and form the basis of the Price rewrite. I don't see how you get to those several similar Devil versions from Inter Diabolus et Virgo without some intervening stage that brought in the sisters and the 'unco' knight.

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 03 May 11 - 11:17 AM

Hi Brian,
Yes, I did get time to do a quick study which you mostly cover in the above. You mention the broadside 'Knight' insipid version possibly going back to the 16th century, but I see no reason why it wasn't a rerwrite by Laurence Price as claimed by him, which would make it about 1650-70. It's certainly his style.

I am on the track of a stall copy mentioned by Baring Gould and printed in Northern Ireland in the late 18th century, but I've a sneaky suspicion it will turn out to be a fairly common version of 'Captain Wedderburn's Courtship'.

I also came to the conclusion the Kentucky/Vermont/North Carolina versions were pretty much the same and well copied and probably derived from Rill Martin via Gladden.

I found the Maine version fascinating and a brilliant example of how literate translators can pass ballads back and forth between languages. Apparently Herder translated the D'Urfey version of the broadside, and then Aytoun translated the German back into English and then it turns up in Maine in oral tradition. I have similar parallels with a German ballad passing into French then Portuguese and being collected in Brazil in oral tradition, all in the space of a century.

If the Williams/Hill Martin/McQueen versions turn out to be survivals from the 15th century version without intervening print that's a remarkable, but not unique, survival.

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: Brian Peters
Date: 03 May 11 - 07:28 AM

Steve: yes, you did say 'probably' in both cases!

"A closer study of all the versions [of Child #1] that have this conclusion might throw up some interesting possibilities. I only have about 50 versions and many of these are just remnants… so it shouldn't take long to pull them out, unless you have already done this."

I haven't made a comprehensive study – my interest was mostly in constructing a singable version that included the Devil's appearance. However, what seems pretty clear from the British oral versions I've looked at (those that aren't just remnants), is that the mysterious knight who comes calling is a universal character, as are the three sisters who make him comfortable, and the last sister who gets either romantically or carnally involved with him (except in Child 1E, in which he addresses the riddles to all three sisters). The 15th century MS version does not open with any such scene-setting, so it looks as though, between the 15th and 17th century, someone created a ballad around the original riddles, in which the Devil disguises himself as an eligible male. This later became rationalised with the disappearance of the Devil, thus transformed into the romantic tale of Child 1A, and further bowdlerised in 1B with the disappearance of the stanza in which the third sister beds the knight.

A refrain involving "bent" or "bank" and "bonny broom" occurs in 1A, C, D, and E, all of which, barring A, have some reference to the Devil (in the case of D – which consists of riddles only – the reciter remarked that it described a conversation with the devil) . 1A (the 17th century broadside) is the oldest known example of this knight/sisters strain of the ballad, but if we accept that this strain began as a Devil ballad, that would push the time of its creation back before the broadside, to early 17th or possibly 16th century.

The North American versions include 'Ninety-Nine and Ninety', which is the one most often heard from American revival singers, most of whom have taken as their model the recording by Texas Gladden in which the line "I'll take you off to hell alive" (which belongs in this version as originally collected from Rill Martin) is omitted in favour of something more anodyne. Hence the incorrect assumption in some quareters that Child 1 lost its Devil in North America. The version collected by Gainer (see below) is clearly related to 'Ninety-Nine and Ninety' but the threat is more oblique. Neither of these includes the knight / sisters element, so either they lost it, or they derive from a different British strain. The other North American version, from Maine, is a highly poetic translation-of-a-translation of the D'Urfey broadside, and doesn't add anything to the picture.

I've also added the verses collected by Alfred Williams in Wiltshire, from 'Folksongs of the Upper Thames', which includes some of the most violent imagery to be found with this ballad. Neither of the two versions below occurs in Child or Bronson, so I thought it might be useful to paste them up here.


Child #1, from Blanche Kelley, Gilmer County West Virginia, date uncertain but maybe 1920s. Appeared in Patrick Gainer's (1975) Folksongs from the West Virginia Hills, posted to a previous Mudcat thread by Kent Davis, who mentioned that: "The word "peart" in the refrain is a dialect word meaning cheerful and becoming."

If you can't answer these questions to me,
O maid so peart and bonnie,
Then you'll be mine and go with me,
and you so peart and bonnie.

O what is higher than the tree?
O maid so peart and bonnie,
And what is deeper than the sea?
And you so peart and bonnie.

O what is louder than the horn?
O maid so peart and bonnie,
And what is earlier than the morn?
and you so peart and bonnie.

O heaven is higher than the tree,
As I am peart and bonnie,
And hell is deeper than the sea,
And I am peart and bonnie.

O thunder is louder than the horn,
As I am peart and bonnie,
And sin is earlier than the morn,
And I am peart and bonnie.


Child #1, from Folksongs of the Upper Thames, Alfred Williams (1923):

There was a knight came to the gate,
He knocked high, he knocked late.

Chorus

Bow down, bow down, sweetheart, and a bonny lass,
And all things shall go well.

If thou canst answer me three times three,
In ten thousand pieces I'll tear thee.

Verse 2

What is louder than a horn?
What is sharper than a thorn?
What is whiter than milk?
What is softer than silk?
What is higher than a tree?
What is deeper than the sea?

Chorus

Verse 3

Thunder's louder than a horn,
Hunger's sharper than a thorn.
Snow is whiter than milk,
Down is softer than silk.
Heaven is higher than a tree,
And hell is deeper than the sea.

Chorus

Then he clapped his wings, and aloud did cry,
And a flame of fire he flew away.

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 30 Apr 11 - 06:51 PM

Brian,
Yes, you don't really need to go any further than Child to see this.
I must admit when you asked I had a quick glance at the beginnings of the obvious versions and they all started with a knight as did the broadside. Had I looked more closely at his notes to the 15thc version which he came across just before he died I'd have spotted it. It's not a ballad I have ever sung or done a study on. The versions do have an echo of the same idea and in fact one of them actually uses the word 'fiend' although as you'd expect over such a stretch of time there is no other wording in common other than the riddles themselves.

A closer study of all the versions that have this conclusion might throw up some interesting possibilities. I'll put it on the list of things to do when I get time. I only have about 50 versions and many of these are just remnants of the riddles, or repeated publishing of the Child versions so it shouldn't take long to pull them out, unless you have already done this.

I also see that I used the word 'probably' in connection with the other ballad, ironically in a similar context regarding the supernatural. That'll teach me not to make hasty statements on ballads I haven't studied.

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 30 Apr 11 - 05:53 PM

No problem at all, Brian, and no discourtesy at all. Child 1 is one of the very few Child ballads that does go back beyond the late 16th century when the ballads we're familiar with were (IMO) starting to be made.
In stating an opinion on oral versions deriving from the broadside, I think I used the word 'probably' and I was definitely talking off the top of my head. I'll have a closer look at the versions you mention now and get back to you. Of course the 17th century broadside is only one stage in the development and there could have been plenty of others that didn't survive. I'm fully aware of examples of ballads that have existed in oral tradition for several centuries seemingly without the assistance of print, but these are few and far between.

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: Brian Peters
Date: 30 Apr 11 - 07:37 AM

Thanks, Steve, for taking the trouble to look those up. It seems a bit discourteous for me to reward your efforts by now disagreeing with what you said before. However, I can't square your belief that the oral versions of Child 1 are all derived from the 17th century broadside, with the fact that the Devil turns up independently in oral versions ranging from Motherwell's MS to Williams' Folk Songs of the Upper Thames and Mrs. Rill Martin's in Virginia in 1922. Which rather suggests that Devil versions were circulating independently of the 17th century broadside, perhaps right back to the 15th century Inter Diabolus et Virgo you mentioned earlier... doesn't it?

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 30 Apr 11 - 02:44 AM

Richard,
The information, from Clare people and Travellers is that when something song-worthy happened in the community there were whole numbers of people capable of making songs.
Two descriptions we recorded - one Traveller and one from a fishing village (Quilty) told of groups of people getting together to make songs - the former on an 'arranged marriage', the latter on the burning of a police barracks. The form of the older songs - stock phrases and all - seem to have served as a template to make new ones.
In the Traveller case, we got several versions of the same song; we only ever recorded one version of the Quilty song, and little information on the incident itself - the only evidence of it having taken place being the song an the fact that the happening described was a common tactic employed during the Irish War of Independence - more evidence that the songs had a common source rather than a commercial one.
No argument that the ballad trade didn't develop their own forms, but these always seemed rather chunky and unsingable to me until the folk knocked the corners off and smoothed them out.
This is why I believe it necessary to examine the forms the songs took in order to come to a conclusion as to their authorship - something Steve disregards.
More later - the broadband system in this part of Liverpool seems to have a nasty dose of St Vitus Dance.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: Richard Mellish
Date: 29 Apr 11 - 05:29 PM

Jim and Steve,

I wonder how significant is the distinction between the kinds of people whom you respectively believe to have been responsible for making many/most of the songs.

Only a few people, then or now, have much skill at making verses. Those who have the skill tend to use it. If (say circa 1800) such people happened to live in a town where there was a broadside printer, they might sell their verses and be thus motivated to produce more. If they happened to live in the country they would necessarily get their living in some other way and would have less time and less motivation to churn out many songs; and the songs that they did make might or might not subsequently find their way into print.

However I am with Steve in seeing internal evidence of the broadside hacks' hands; in stock phrases such as "we hear" used to fill up lines; in all those milk-white steeds and dapple greys; in things that go on for "a day/league/year but barely three" and suchlike.

Richard

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 29 Apr 11 - 04:13 PM

Brian,
The best article on the Price ballad is in Folk Music Journal 25 1989, Vol 5, Number 5, pp592-607, by David Atkinson.

The above quote is paraphrasing William Chappell writing about the ballad in The Roxburghe Ballads Vol 3 p200. in 1880.

Here's what he says
'This is a tale of a married woman who is prompoted by the spirit of her deceased lover to leave her husband and three children, and to go with him. She had waited three years for her lover, and heard that he was dead, before she married; so, this being the seventh year, she was badly treated by this member of the spiritual world. her husband hanged himself, and she was never heard of more. the warning to other married women herein conveyed (unless it be against the tricks of evil spirits) is rather obscure. Of course, it did not occur to any one that the old lover could have returned in the flesh. The miracle saved Mrs Jane Reynolds's reputation.' My comment is based on the last 2 sentences of Chappell which, having studied many similar ballads, I think is probably the case. The supernatural was widely believed in in the 17th century and ballad writers often used it to hammer home a point or make a ballad more dramatic. But David is much more qualified than I am to write about the history of ballads, although I am often very honoured when he consults me or complements me on my papers and presentations.

Riddles.
No, Brian. The 17th century rewrite is simply a wit combat prior to marriage between a knight and a maiden as in most oral versions that contain more than just the riddles themselves. So your second type.

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 29 Apr 11 - 01:49 PM

Hi Brian,
Will check both of these later tonight and report back.

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 29 Apr 11 - 08:12 AM

"I've no great desire to re-open the battle between Steve and Jim"
Fear not Brian - been busy and am now away from home, but by no means finished yet!!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: Brian Peters
Date: 29 Apr 11 - 08:01 AM

I've no great desire to re-open the battle between Steve and Jim on this thread, but I was intrigued by a remark Steve made at one point:

"I think Price's slightly later ballad "James Harris/ The Demon Lover/ The House Carpenter/ A Warning for Married Women" was probably based on exaggerated reports from Plymouth."

I have a bit of an interest in this ballad and was wondering whether there exist actual contemporary reports from Plymouth relating to a maritime tragedy with or without a supernatural element, or whether you're extrapolating backwards from the broadside title?

Regarding Child 1, Steve wrote:

"I haven't looked closely at all oral versions but there's a strong probability they all derive from the 17thc print versions either directly or indirectly."

I haven't had your access to the broadsides, Steve, but I'm curious to know whether the ones you refer to contain references to the Devil, or were all of the romantic "get the riddles right and I'll marry you" variety.

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 24 Apr 11 - 12:18 PM

Nothing rules out further discussion, Jim.

I am pretty certain your valuable work with the later broadside printers and travellers in Ireland has relevance to the broadside trade in general and may even prove to have some bearing on what was going on in England c1800. Even 5% is a hell of a lot of songs. And if this evidence were to be neglected it certainly would be criminal. Have you published on it?

'Vernacular' in my experience can and was very easlily imitated and I have plenty of examples of this. Just one for instance. One of our East Riding pieces full of local dialect and unmistakably set in Yorkshire which I recorded in the sixties, later turned out to be a late music hall song adapted from southern English dialect. One of the largest and most popular genres in the broadside trade was dialect pieces, some of which entered oral tradition and lasted.

'Familiarity with subject matter' I have already dealt with.

I'm not familiar with the Fowler study, but I suspect you are referring to Child Ballads which form only a very small part of the corpus under discussion, i.e., the Child Ballads found in that corpus largely are made up of versions from nineteenth century broadsides. (I'm not suggesting they originated in that time or medium)

If you are referring to Child Ballads then of course a large number of these are much older than the corpus under discussion, though at least a third can be found on broadsides.

You continue to put words into my mouth that I have not used. Leslie Shepherd was most certainly not an 'ignoramus' of any sort. It just so happens his expertise was in the history of the printed ballads.

As for Peter Buchan, I just happen to agree with Child, having closely studied all of PB's ballads, and everything written about him.

I unreservedly apologise for any patronising. Some of what you took to be patronising was just intended as cameraderie.

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 23 Apr 11 - 04:20 AM

"Jim, the evidence you keep bleating about lies in the songs themselves,"
Not entirely true Steve, unless you totally disregard what the few singers (and ballad sellers and buyers) that were asked had to say, which apparently you do, as you have pointedly not taken them into consideration in your 'analysis'. As far as I am concerned, these are the sources of our material and could be a way to a greater understanding of it if we pull together what little was got from them and examine it closely. To separate the songs from those who sang them and possibly made them , and the communities that kept them alive, is an act of almost criminal negligence in my book.
The song texts give some clue to their origins; use of vernacular, familiarty with subject matter, etc., which you have persisted in avoiding discussing the implications of.
All of this is sparse enough, but coupled with earlier scholarship - which apparently you have written off as rose-tinted romanticism, it beats hands down (IMO) desk-bound paper pushing and head-counting, and I suspect you are aware of this, from your reluctance to discuss it.
There is an undeniable link between our songs and ballads and print, but it is by no means as simplistic as you make out. David C Fowler did some fascinating work on the subject, research that places the origins of many ballads much earlier than the broadside presses. He also places the ballads on a far higher plane that your putting them on par with Lennon's and McCartney's output, and the people who kept them alive through the ages as being no different than attendees of a Boyzone concert.
My objection to what you have to say is not that I disagree with it; rather that its is set in such arrogant finality that it rules out further discussion.
         
The truth is, we don't know the answer to who made the ballads and songs, and probably never will, and to pretend otherwise is disingenuous and damaging to further understanding.

I did find your patronising tone somewhat amusing at first; I am now finding it downright insulting. You appear to counter the work of those who disagree with you by denigrating them as researchers rather than being prepared to discuss their ideas head-on - I'm a hopless romantic, Leslie Shepherd was an ignoramus when it comes to folk-song, Peter Buchan was a liar and a cheat - not good scholarship in my book, and certainly not the way to an understanding of a complex subject.
Absence of definite knowledge is best handled with a degree of humility, which you apparently lack.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 22 Apr 11 - 04:37 PM

Jim,
Nothing romantic about it. For the umpteenth time nowhere have I said that 'ignorant peasants' were incapable of making up songs. I'm sure they did, but many did not make it as far as the time of collection and as I have said, by the end of 18th century the market was absolutely flooded with material coming out of the towns and cities, which swamped them. I have plenty of examples of songs that were obviously made in the countryside by the workers but they only constitute a very small proportion of the whole corpus and generally they didn't stray much further than the county boundary.

Jim, the evidence you keep bleating about lies in the songs themselves, their structural devices, subject matter, idealism, phraseology etc. To produce that evidence here for just one song even would fill this thread and 20 more.

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 22 Apr 11 - 03:11 PM

"but I can't tell for the rose-coloured spectacles."
It works for me Steve - much more than a gut reaction anyway, and there's nothing whatever you have put up AS FACT, to persuade me otherwise.
Of course, it is a tad romantic to believe that ignorant peasants could possibly make songs and not have to have them made for them.
I await with interest to see if you come up with any of this evidence you have promised, but I won't hold my breath.
Best,
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: GUEST,SteveG
Date: 22 Apr 11 - 01:41 PM

Jim,
I don't think I need say much more. Your MacColl quotation may have brought tears to your eyes, but I can't tell for the rose-coloured spectacles.

I will try to remember to put IMO on any other responses. We will no doubt cross swords again on another thread somewhere.

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 22 Apr 11 - 05:23 AM

Sorry - missed a bit - my first draft went awol:
"I personally can't see them spending what little leisure time they might have had writing songs, when there was a steady flow of songs ready-made, covering all subjects,"
The idea that conditions in rural England were any harder than in Ireland or Scotland is an utter nonsense.
The non-mechanisation of farms in Ireland lasted well into the middle of the 20th century - they were still saving the hay by hand in the early seventies here.
Far from deterring the making of songs, poor conditions, permanent political unrest, mass emigrations, total reliance on the weather, avaricious landlords, murderous invasions by military thugs (The Tans) - all served as a spur to make songs rather than go out and buy them.
There was little produced during tha famine years - hardly surprising - but otherwise, hardship and struggle was highly-combustible fuel to the rural songmakers.
The same was true of rural Scotland and the near-slavery conditions of the hiring fairs and prison-like bothy life.
And also, I believe, to the merchant seaman in his enclosed conditions and plenty to make songs about.
Taking all into consideration, it must have been a relief, almost and essential escape-valve, to be able to vent your feelings by making a song about what was happening to all these people.
Surely all this is a hint that you have not looked at the whole picture and applied a little logic if you feel it necessary to make a point like this, don't you think?
And again; I've pointed out before ballad seller Mikeen McCarthy's comment when asked whether he made any songs to put on his ballad sheets - "why go to the trouble when there were plenty all round to pick from?"
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 22 Apr 11 - 03:57 AM

"The majority of the corpus seems to date from the latter half of the 18thc.... etc"
None of this in any way shows one way or the other where our songs originated - I've put up what I believe to be signposts to some sort of an educated guess on this; I can't see that we have any more to go on.
"I have an obsessive analytical mind and my love for traditional song..."
Again, it depends what you are analysing; your failure to addres some of the questions I have raised indicates - not by any means all the evidence and indications available.
And again, we have no idea if what appeared in print is the result of creativity on the part of the hack or his/her re-creative skills - or do we??
"70 years before the earliest oral version was collected."
And you know as well as I do that collecting never came into its own before the beginning of the 20th century - we have always acknowledged that we missed far, far more than we saved - not even a starter for ten.
"I can't prove the ballads originated on the broadsides" - "I CAN prove that the earliest extant version of 90%"......
There you go again Steve - you can not prove anything of the sort, you can only provide us with the earlies printed copy and CLAIM that there were no printed versions before this one - not even close to proving anything, especially whether or not they were circulating in the oral tradition prior to tha date.
"Roughly, Jim, what proportion of the corpus of English traditional song do you think"
I have no idea whatever Steve, there again, it is not me making dogmatic claims.
There is nothing new to the idea of examining the link between broadsides and traditional songs; my old friend Bob Thomson was working at it before he departed for America thirty-odd years ago.
Another friend, John Moulden has carried out some fascinating research on the subject and I thingk he came up with something like 25%, (if you are looking in on this John, I apologise if I got this wrong; it was a hurried conversation) and John is far more open minded that you are proving to be. Even then, from what we learned through our own fieldwork, I am extremely reluctant to either state or accept any set figure without discussion.
"BUT, you simply cannot apply this to 18th/19th century rural England."
If you mean you cannot 'simply' apply this to 18th/19th century rural England, I agree totally, but to ignore the lessons that are to be drawn from the two (which I have pointed out, and you, once again, have ignored) is utter, single-minded arrogance.
"but I am in constant contact with a large number of academics..."
And once again you seem to be presenting a number of character references rather than facts - doesn't wash wit me, I'm afraid.
As far I am concerned, we are dealing with the unknown, and probably the unknowable, due largely to an attitiude not unsimilar to yours that there is nothing to be learned from the tradition, so why bother to look.
Your inflexble refusal to accept your/our ignorance and plough ahead with your definitive pronouncements, far from bringing us any nearer to an understanding of our traditions, will have the opposite effect and set that ignorance in amber for all times - sorry Steve, not for me.
The question was summed up beautifully for me by MacColl in his ending to what still remains after half a century the best summing up of our traditional songs ever - The Song Carriers:
"Well, there they are; the songs of our people. Some of them have been centuries in the making; some were undoubtedly born on the broadside presses. Some have the marvellous perfection of stones shaped by the sea's movement; others are as brash as a cup-final crowd.
They were made by professional bards and by unknown poets of the plough-stilts and the hand-loom.
They are tender, harsh, passionate, ironical, simple, profound; as varied indeed as the landscape of this island.
We are all indebted to the Harry Coxs and Phil Tanners, to Colm Keane and Maggie McDonagh, to Belle Stewart and Jessie Murray and all the sweet and raucous unknown singers who have helped to carry our peoples' songs across the centuries."

Still brings a lump to the throat!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: Stringsinger
Date: 21 Apr 11 - 05:10 PM

One of Woody's most important songs in my estimation is "The Ludlow Massacre". Howard Zinn credits it as being influential in his career which includes authorship of an important book, "The People's History of the United States".

I see historical ballads as more than the recitation of facts. History shows what people did but the songs indicate how they felt.

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 21 Apr 11 - 05:01 PM

....
Now, here is the bottom line as I see it.
I can't prove the ballads originated on the broadsides.
You can't prove they originated among the rural poor.
In the area and time period I have mentioned I CAN prove that the earliest extant version of 90% of them is either on street literature or from the theatre or similar institution.

If you will accept that, I'm quite happy to say we have here a stalemate. You're never going to convince me, I'm never going to convince you. Others can see the arguments for themselves and choose what they want to agree with or disagree with. I would imagine most people with an interest and a modicum of knowledge on the subject would be happy to stand somewhere in between our two stances.

Just as a matter of interest, you haven't actually told us where you stand. Roughly, Jim, what proportion of the corpus of English traditional song do you think originated in the way I have described?

As for your experiences in Ireland among travellers, nowhere have I disputed anything you have said about this. Just to make this clear though, I fully accept what you say about what went on in 20th century Ireland, BUT, you simply cannot apply this to 18th/19th century rural England.

'Jack-hammer Scholarship'. I am known to hold controversial views on several related topics, but I am in constant contact with a large number of academics and writers on the subject and this is the first time my views have been so directly opposed. Congratulations!

And I finish with a general apology to the OP and anyone else for having hi-jacked yet another thread on this one. At least the thread title has some relevance this time.

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 21 Apr 11 - 04:47 PM

....
I have already concurred with you on several threads that ultimately no-one can prove beyond doubt that any ephemeral piece of work like this can be pinned down toan original, BUT that does not meanthat we can't lookat all the versions and come up with the most likely origin, especially, but not exclusively, where its earliest extant manifestation is a printed sheet with somebody's name attached.

Now, it might be helpful for you to understand my stance and why I won't budge an inch from it, if I explain briefly how I came by this stance.

I have an obsessive analytical mind and my love for traditional songled me to want to look in great detail at the possible origins and evolution of the songs and ballads I was interested in. Over the last 40 -odd years I have chosen a ballad and taken every available version of it, printed and oral, and compared line by line until patterns of evolution have emerged. this has included all of the extant stall copy variants. (Yes I know it's sad but it keeps me off the streets and out of the pub) I have done this, I would estimate for more than half of the previously mentioned English corpus. I have actually got copies of broadsides for about 90% of them. In most cases the earliest stall copy is its earliest manifestation by at least 70 years, i.e., 70 years before the earliest oral version was collected.
cont......

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 21 Apr 11 - 04:32 PM

I see absolutely no reason why the contemporary writers on broadsides are wrong when they say, like Hindley did, that a specific group of people gained a living by writing these broadside ballads. the printers quite naturally had their businesses in towns and cities, and their song suppliers lived in reasonable proximity. the information which inspired them was readily available from a wide variety of sources, newspapers, books, even the rural people who were moving into the towns looking for work, sailors newly arrived on shore etc, in fact many were simply rewriting other broadsides. (The same plots appear over and over again, e.g., returning sailor/broken token)

The majority of the corpus seems to date from the latter half of the 18thc and the first few decades of the 19th. We can easily deduce this from their subject matter, their style and their earliest appearance, i.e., we can easily date the printer.

During this period in England the common people left in rural areas, who hadn't migrated to the horrific conditions in the cities to avoid starvation, were living in abject poverty, in working conditions verging on slavery, and literacy levels were very low. I personally can't see them spending what little leisure time they might have had writing songs, when there was a steady flow of songs ready-made, covering all subjects, coming out of the towns via the pedlars and chapmen. those lucky enough to live close enough to a town to go there once a week would have come into contact with ballad singers and patterers.

Nowhere have I said or impied that the rural population were incapable of making up songs; they simply did not have the time, or need when there was already a plentiful supply. cont....

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 21 Apr 11 - 12:24 AM

"I'll take my time and answer the points you make "
Look forward to it with anticipation Steve.
".....fully appreciate the part played by the people of all walks of life who transmitted them and kept them alive for us."
As you have debunked the idea that they played any part in their making and thrown a king sized spanner in their part in remaking them, I find that difficult to accept; but let's see, shall we.
"like you, I have dedicated my life...."
It would help if you stopped patronising me by "removing my head from the sand" and taking off my "rose coloured spectacles" - I've spent as long as you at this work, if not longer, and the nature of the work we've done merits a degree of respect, even if we have spent thirty-odd years collecting only to get it hopelessly wrong - please stop insulting my intelligence and give me some facts to work with.
"....any favours by denying what is to me their obvious origins."   
If they are that obvious, it shouldn't be too difficult to put some factual meat on your extremely definitive and dogmatic skeletons - you've failed fairly miserably so far.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 20 Apr 11 - 06:13 PM

Phew!
I think we need a ref.
I seem to have severely rattled your cage, Jim, and fair enough, now you're trying to rattle mine. I'll take my time and answer the points you make carefully as there's been a lot of inaccurate reading between the lines.

Before I do this I want to make absolutely clear, like you, I have dedicated my life to traditional song and fully appreciate the part played by the people of all walks of life who transmitted them and kept them alive for us. I love these things AT LEAST every bit as much as you do. However, personally, I don't think it does the songs themselves, the people who made them and the people who transmitted them, yes, and even those who study them, any favours by denying what is to me their obvious origins.

More anon.

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 20 Apr 11 - 03:49 AM

"They were the equivalent of POP songs when they hit the streets,"
Which brings us back to our original problem - hitting the streets (a) assumes that they were urban creations that were peddles as commodities.
And (b)
That they came from 'elswehere' other than from the communities where they were sung.
There is no evidence for either and in our experience, both, particularly the second, because of the familiarity with detail, are highly unlikely.
So far you have not answered, or even approached any of the questions I have raised concerning your extremely dogmatic, and I believe destructive stance, in regard to our understanding of the songs.
How can a group of outside balladmakers create and fine-tune a body of songs, why were the English rural working people alone in these islands, totally unable to make songs, why do obvious creations of the broadside presses stick out like sore thumbs next to the traditional songs...... and above all, why do you continue to make your definitive claims, yet are unable to produce one song which you can caterogically show was produced on the broadside pressed and never appeared in the oral tradition....?
Given there total absence of your evidence on this claim, there is a great deal of evidence, and simple common sense which indicates the contrary, which you either dismiss without discussion or totally ignore when it is pointed out to you - a man on a mission???
"I have never said the rural population played no part in their creation."
No - you wouldn't dare, but you leave me with the impression that you would if you could get away with it.
                        Whether you say it or not - that is the implication of what you are saying, whether you intend it to be or not.
Dismiss (totally now) the creative part we have always believed was played by the people who sang the songs, in their making, and then inject doubt in the variants, and these people are left with no definite role whatever and are relegated to voiceleless, cultureless peasants... you have achieved what every romantic reactionary has aspired to down the ages - a truely silent people - well done you - I wonder why!
I wonder why you steadfastly refuse to regard all the points I've made (based on our own work) - not accept them, just look at them.
Instead you propose house-to-house street fighting - I put up a song - you provide a name - I ask how you you can prove it wasn't sung in the oral tradition beforehand - you go silent..... and so ad-infinitum.
The scholarship of the jack-hammer Steve.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 19 Apr 11 - 05:45 PM

Michael,
You'll have to forgive my mixed metaphors/cliches. I'm currently working on a book of ballads containing sexual metaphors and there's certainly a lot of mixing going on.

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 19 Apr 11 - 05:38 PM

Hi Jack,
I'm not sure how 'Riddles' originated. And I'm sure no-one else is.
It's earliest extant version on a 15thc manuscript certainly is unlikely to have anything to do with the rural common people. And by the 17thc it was a pop song that appeared on several broadsides and in D'Urfey's Pills. I haven't looked closely at all oral versions but there's a strong probablility they all derive from the 17thc print versions either directly or indirectly.

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 19 Apr 11 - 05:14 PM

You're now changing my 95% into 100%, Jim.
I have never said the rural population played no part in their creation. They certainly played a massive part in their re-creation. and function. Yes, it cetainly does place them on the same level as any pop songs churned out by today's music industry. They were the equivalent of POP songs when they hit the streets, and those that came out of the theatres and pleasure gardens and glee clubs and cellars in the towns were also pop songs. They only became folk songs when the folk started singing them. My belief is that the working rural population, decimated by the migration into towns and cities, hadn't the time, nor the inclination to write their own songs. And if they had they would have been swamped by the masses of popular material coming out of the urban areas. The widespread songs about rural life are generally sentimentalised, idealised pieces about shepherdesses, milkmaids, etc, that bear no relation to the reality of conditions, which were one step up from slavery.

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 19 Apr 11 - 06:03 AM

Steve; an additional thought.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but some time ago you suggested that not only were our folksongs created on the broadside presses, but also, many of the variants found in the tradition were attributable to the same source? Doesn't this undermining any suggestion that the rural population played any part in their creation or re-creation and reduce our folksongs, in terms of creation or function, to the same level as any pop song churned out by todays music industry, and the singers no different than today's recipients of such?
Which brings us back to the artless and cultureless noble sons and daughters of the soil so beloved by the various Romantic movements IMO.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 19 Apr 11 - 05:25 AM

No wonder that a few minutes later you said he was "going around in circles"!
~M~

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 19 Apr 11 - 05:23 AM

"I think you are looking at this through rose-coloured spectacles and to some extent burying your head in the sand" Steve Gardham ···

Just a bit of a drift, but may I congratulate you, Steve, on one of the finest mixed metaphors I ever remember ~~

?? Doesn't the sand get on to the rose-coloured lenses??

Regards

~Michael~

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 19 Apr 11 - 04:41 AM

"First you complain at sharp and co for weeding out the music hall and parlour songs"
Where did I 'complain' Steve?
My complaint is that we have little information on our FOLK SONGS, other than the songs themselves from our field singers I certainly haven't complained that collectors didn't gather anything other than folk songs, which I believe to be inevitable given the conditions under which they worked.
If you are making an all round study of a singer you gather in everything, but these studies are few and far between.
The fact that the only information we have about the vast majority of our source singers is 'name, rank and serial number' leaves us extremely ignorant of our traditions and how they worked.
"Of course many of the 'performers' who were recorded compartmentalised their songs"
I didn't use the loaded term 'performers'; in my experience the field singers that were available to us over the last few decades comprise of those who happened to remember a handful of songs from family, friends, drinking companions... etc, and those who were recognised as singers within their communities - it is the latter who 'appeared' to compartmentalise (in our experience, though I believe we have too little information, gathered too late to draw any hard and fast conclusion). It is difficult to draw any conclusions whatever from what was found in England in the 20th century as the singing traditions had all but disappeared by the time the songs were being seriously sought - and even then, it was only the songs that were gathered. Making hard-and-fast statements on what was gathered in, especially in the latter half of the 20th century is bound to give a distorted picture; that is why we are forced to look elsewhere for comparisons, which we make only after taking diffrences into consideration.
I am well aware that there are differences between the circumstances between the Irish and English situations, I also recognise that there are important similarities, cross fertilisation of repertoire, similarities in the transition of songs, emigration and temporary working in Britain.... a whole bunch of reasons to compare notes.
One of the finest sean nós Irish language singers spent half of his life in Leeds, the English folk revival was floated on two extremely influential Irish singers and musicians, the building of the English roads, canals and railways brought over vast numbers of Irish people, among them singers and musicians.
I once attended a fascinating talk given by Peter Hall on how the richness of the North East Scotland song tradition was influenced by the Irish navvies who worked on laying the Aberdeenshire railways - all this needs to be taken into consideration if we are to begin to understand our song traditions.
We have worked with English, Irish, and to a far lesser extent (little more than taking down some songs and short converstions, and listening to intervies carried out by others) Scots traditional singers and have come to the conclusion that there are enough parallels in all three to draw some general conclusions about all the singing traditions. If you believe that there are differences which preclude us from doing so, then you have to say what these are, rather than hinting at them darkly.
In my opinion, the way forward to any understanding of our tradition is to pool what little we have, examine it and see if any conclusions can be drawn from it - and not fly of in what I consider to be an extremely reactionary tangent that attempts to destroy any possiblilty of an existence of a creative oral tradition, based on the flimsiest of evidence.
There are some extremely important inteviews of Sam Larner, Harry Cox, and other source singers, not counting our own work with Walter Pardon; all containing information valuable to our understanding of our tradition - maybe not enough, but we'll never know if we don't try.
A holistic approach to these questions is what is needed, not a gung-ho, go-it-alone full frontal attack which, to me, has the effect of devaluing what we do know rather than adding to it.
"From the same corpus a well-known ballad please that you consider did not originate under commercial conditions? "
Once again - it is not me who is making the definitive claims - I simple say we really don't have a clue where these song originated, and to claim we do by making definitive statements is extremely misleading
I do believe that our folk songs contain observations, references and information that is highly unlikely to have come from a school of outsider "hacks" - something you have yet to address.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: Jack Campin
Date: 18 Apr 11 - 06:23 PM

You asked me to select a song from the corpus I considered originated as a broadside piece. I did that. I now return the request. From the same corpus a well-known ballad please that you consider did not originate under commercial conditions?

Well, I'll suggest one. Riddles Wisely Expounded.

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 18 Apr 11 - 05:53 PM

You seem to be going around in circles, Jim.
First you complain at sharp and co for weeding out the music hall and parlour songs and anything else they may have discarded, then you say these shouldn't be included anyway. You can't have it both ways.

You say we are not social historians. I beg to differ. If you were a social historian you would have no difficulty in spotting the differences between 20th century Ireland and 19th century England.

Of course many of the 'performers' who were recorded compartmentalised their songs. I can also think of many local examples. But I can come up with 20 times as many who weren't 'performers' who didn't, as well. This doesn't prove anything.

The early collectors were absolutely right to be selective. Like us they had limited time and saw the singers dying off. They wanted to get the most useful material recorded in as much quantity as possible. What was the point in collecting the other stuff when it was readily available elsewhere.

You asked me to select a song from the corpus I considered originated as a broadside piece. I did that. I now return the request. From the same corpus a well-known ballad please that you consider did not originate under commercial conditions?

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 18 Apr 11 - 03:45 PM

Sorry - missed a bit:
"Apart from the fact that nearly all of these singers had a sizable repertoire of music hall songs and parlour songs all of commercial origin from the towns."
Totally irrelevant to the discussion - we are folk song collectors and enthusiasts, not oral or social historians or ethnomusicologists,
A traditional singer having such pieces in their repertoire doesn't make them 'folk' or 'traditional' any more than Dame Kiri Tikanawa singing 'Wouldn't it be Loverly' makes it opera.
It was our experience that singers - particularly those with sizeable repertoires compartmentalised their songs just a much as we do (or should do).
Walter Pardon called his folk songs 'folk songs', Mary Delaney called them 'My daddie's songs' even though she learned no more than a dozen out of a repertoire of around 200 from him. She refused to sing us her 100 or so C&W songs and told us she only sang them "because that's what the lads ask for down in the pub"; and "the new songs have the old ones destroyed".
It seems that it's only us (some of us) folkies who, for some strange reason, can't tell the difference between Max Miller and Harry Cox.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 18 Apr 11 - 03:28 PM

"That doesn't take anything away from my belief that at leat 95% of them actually originated under these commercial conditions."
Yet so far you have failed to produce a single one that you can guarantee did so.
It is extremely misleading to make definitive claims on such a basic question when you have no proof whatever that any of them were not taken from an oral tradition.
I wouldn't claim for a minute that there weren't some that originated on the broadside presses, but claiming that 95% were is a theory (no more) that totally scuppers the idea that, unlike the Irish and Scots rural working people, the English totally failed to produce any oral literature of their own, but rather, had it produced for them. It isn't even good scholarship.
I have spent most of my musical life listening to people claim that "the folk may have produced the songs, but the ballads were far too sophistcated to have been produced by unlettered peasants". You take it a step further and claim they produced virtually nothing - shame on you Steve.
You have yet to address the question of how a school of "hacks" - your term, not mine - could produce a body of songs so representative of a whole class of people and have the skill to produce a corpus of songs with the feel and familiarity of their subject matter, and fool so many people for so long - even the people who grew up with them and kept them alive.
Let's have your proof Steve.
And really - adding IMO behind your unfounded theories is a shoddy cop-out which just won't do.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 18 Apr 11 - 03:13 AM

Steve,
There is no argument that the broadside press didn't produce their own songs - of course that did - and thumbing through Ashton and the like, they stand out like sore thumbs when placed next to the ones we rafer to as 'traditional' - often clunky and unsingable, comapred to the natural flow and stark realistic, and often incisively beautiful observations of folk songs.
If they were all produced by the same school, thenthe pupils must have led a Jeykl and Hyde existence.
More later
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 17 Apr 11 - 07:10 PM

Jim, I have never denied the interaction between oral tradition and print, in fact I have lots of evidence that a lot of broadside ballads were taken from oral tradition. I am writing an article at the moment about a ballad that does just that. That doesn't take anything away from my belief that at leat 95% of them actually originated under these commercial conditions. The ones they were taking back from oral tradition had originated on broadsides or in the theatre and pleasure gardens.

As for your points b and c I absolutely agree with you and lament the situation, but that is how it is, or was when these things were being collected. Apart from the fact that nearly all of these singers had a sizable repertoire of music hall songs and parlour songs all of commercial origin from the towns.


IMO

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 17 Apr 11 - 06:56 PM

Flicking through it the book is riddled with accounts of how at least some of the ballads were composed in London by Catnach and his friends.

p381 'the authors and poets who give this peculiar literature alike in prose or rhyme to the streets, are all in some capacity or another connected with the street patter or song; and the way in which a narrative or a 'copy of verses' is prepared for the press is usually this:- The leading members of the 'schools'--some of whom refer regularly to the evening papers--when they hear of any out of the way occurrence, resort to the printer and desire its publication in a style proper for the streets. This is usually done very speedily, the school, or a majority of them -- and the printer agreeing with the author.' Much greater detail ensuing over financial matters and then 'The chief residence of these parties being nearest to the long-established printer....'

Significant that both Hindley and you both refer to it as a 'school' and yet until now I haven't used the term.

'It must be borne in mind that the street-author is closely restricted in the quality of his effusions. It must be such as the patterers approve, as the chanters can chant, the ballad singers sing, and above all, such as the street buyers will buy.'

Well, you brought up Hindley!

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 17 Apr 11 - 06:25 PM

Interesting you mention Hindley. A little quote from his Catnach biography will suffice for now. 'Catnach.....for his halfpenny songs relying for their composition on his "Seven Bards of the Seven Dials' and when they were on the drink, or otherwise not inclined to work, being driven to write and invent them himself'. More anon.

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 17 Apr 11 - 05:42 PM

Steve, It really isn't a matter of scepticism - it is an attempt to take on board everything we/I have learned about the tradition through discussions with most of the singers we met.
We know for certain that here in rural Ireland peopl made songs reflecting their lives and experiences - that happened certainly throughout the 19th - early 20th century and led to an enormous number of songs which were taken up and re-made: emigration, political, love, praise of place, trades.... lyrical, narrative, humourous, tragic...... the native Irish repertoire is vast and all enveloping, and those that made it in print did so via the travellers taking them up and selling them on the sheets.
We know that the same happened in Scotland, though I am not as familiar with the nuts and bolts of this - apart from some reading on bothy songs - though I do find some of David Buchan's writing on the ballads fascinating, if flawed.
We also know it happened in England, at least, according to Walter Pardon it did.
Our knowledge is limited by the facts that:
a - The English tradition disappeared quite early and we were left with a handful of singers who remembered the songs from second hand experience.
b - Collectors treated the songs as artefacts and assumed that the singers had nothing else to offer, and so didn't bother to seek further information.
c - Collectors did not bother taking down locally made songs because they assumed that unless they resembled or were already in the national repertoire they were of no interest.
So we only have only a half a picture of the English rural repertoire.
When we discussed this subject earlier I pointed out that Leslie Shepherd considered our folk songs to have passed on to the broadsides and not vise versa - your response was that Shepherd's knowledge of folk songs was poor - not good enough, and not the impression he left me with on the few occasions I met him - I shared a platform with him when he and I spoke at MacColl's 70th birthday symposium. In my opinion you have to disprove what he believed, not denigrate his knowledge to prove him wrong.
Somewhere in Shepherd's writings there is a passage indicating that Hindley shared Shepherd's view that the country songs were passed on to the broadsides - Hindley was probably as close to the broadside trade as anybody could get.
Isaac Walton, when writing about broadsides, refers to the songs s 'country songs' - an 'accidental' turn of phrase?
You say it is a big jump from 20th to 19th century Ireland - is it really - Travellers have been dealing in the ballad trade for that length of time, making them far nearer to the the source than either you or I.
If I am going to abandon a lifelong belief that rural working people made songs which reflected their lives and experiences, using the commonplaces, vernacular, intimately familiar description of their subject, lore, topography, observance of seasons, working practices, the land, and accept that the songs were made by a school (I know you have protested this term, but that is the implication of what you are saying) with all this knowledge and observational skill, then I am going to need more than a name on the bottom of a broadside; otherwise I shall have to take up the idea that Rod Stewart wrote Wild Mountain Thyme because it has his name at the bottom (with a little (c).
Until you tackle the anomolies and contradictions raised by the idea of a broadside school of writers, all else is as nothing in this discussion.
I have no idea how Bonny Bunch of Roses came to be written, but, with respect, neither have you.
Jim arroll

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 17 Apr 11 - 04:11 PM

Jim,
I've just thought of a new angle. Perhaps you can suggest how you think 'The Bonny Bunch of Roses' came into being.

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 17 Apr 11 - 03:58 PM

Jim,
You're the first person I've come across who's a bigger skeptic than me. I'm suitably impressed. We've come to this point before. By the way I don't suppose it makes any difference to you, but I was quoting Malcolm Douglas in post 99. I don't think anyone else on Mudcat would have been brave enough to contradict Malcolm, but then you are a one-off, and I mean that in the nicest possible way. I didn't intend to be patronising earlier on, I was being genuine.

In deference to you I will append all my future posts with IMO.

Unless you have anything new to add I think we can stop boring others with our little disagreement now. I would be pleased to continue if you can come at it from a different angle. It intrigues me because you are the first and only person to present such an argument to me. I was already fully aware of the situation in rural Ireland in the early years of the 20th century as I've spent many happy hours in Merrion Square at ITMA. I even have some of the copies of the Irish broadsides you refer to, but to relate rural Ireland of the 20th cen tury to early nineteenth century England is pushing things rather a lot.



IMO.

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 17 Apr 11 - 03:35 PM

And your evidence for their not having been in oral circulation beforehand and taken by George Brown "to get his shilling from the printer" is.....?
We have recorded two songs, one in the Travellers tradition (concerning an arranged marriage) and one in the West Clare tradition (about an occurrence in the Irish War of Independence), which were made on the day of the events described and in circulation within the week - passing into variants within the month.
It is not for me to find evidence of it being in oral circulation first; I am making no such a definitive claim; it is up to you, who is making such claims, to show that it wasn't.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 17 Apr 11 - 02:41 PM

Oh, and I almost forgot, 100!

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 17 Apr 11 - 02:32 PM

Wow that's generous, Jim!
I could name about 2,000 off the top of my head and be confident you would not be able to find any evidence of oral tradition prior to the earliest broadside, but I'll stick to these parameters here given which you very generously offer.

Okay, the first one that jumped into my head for no particular reason was 'Young Napoleon or The Bunch of Roses O.' Pretty obviously the ballad must postdate Bonaparte's demise as it's about Maria Louisa and her son. In fact it seems to postdate the death of young Napoleon who died in Vienna in 1832. A broadside issued by Hill of London credits the ballad to one George Brown of whom we know very little other than his name and it is also appended to broadsides, 'Flora the Lily of the West', 'The Merchant's Daughter and Constant Farmer's Son', and 'The Grand Conversation on Napoleon', all since then found in oral tradition. Hill was printing at about that time. Since then the ballad has been printed by just about every broadside printer in the country, and I might add with very little variation from the usual 6 stanzas. In fact there is very little variation between any of the oral versions probably as the ballad is so recent and hasn't had sufficient time in oral tradition to accrue much variation, apart from which it was so readily available in print all over Britain.

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 17 Apr 11 - 04:38 AM

"I'll extend the offer I made a few months back"
Better than that Steve - give me any traditional song that you can claim without fear of contradiction, originated on the broadside presses and was not in circulation in the tradition in one form or another beforehand.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 16 Apr 11 - 04:24 PM

I think we've got back to 'You show me yours and I'll show you mine' again, Jim.

I'll extend the offer I made a few months back; YOU select any ballad from the corpus of material mentioned above, barring some of the older Child ballads, and let's take it from there.