Sorry, just got back to this thread. The 'Danny Deever/Flase knight on the road'connection I found in a biography of Kipling's life up to his final 'trip home' from India. 'Kipling Sahib' is probably the best biography I have read. When Kipling, as a boy, was in England one of his relatives used to sing what we now call 'folk songs', one of which was 'False knight on the rosd'. Now consider 'Danny Deever' with 'FKotR'. There's the same Q & A, the same rhyme pattern & the same rythem, so I would say that it, in all probability he had that in mind. As to the broader Q about his use of folk song in his poems. A contempory account mentions that whilst he was writing 'My name is O'Kelly...' he was humming 'Lilli-ba-laro' to himself. Not conclusive of course but......