Thank you all again, for so many excellent suggestions! I've already listened to many of them, and it's so difficult to choose which 3 to start learning! But I do intend to make my selection only from songs/performers suggested in this thread.

I don't want to get involved (again!) in the 'What is a folk song' debate; except to say that my intention, this year, is to learn, and sing, 3 genuinely traditional folk songs - songs that come 'from the folk', that have a long pedigree, that don't have a known writer, and that are not copyrighted. I don't mean to denigrate, in any way, the thousands of excellent songs that don't fit those criteria; it's just that they don't fit my personal 2019 resolution.

Btw, I will definitely not be posting, on this thread, my final choices, as though this is some kind of folk music beauty contest with 'winners' and 'losers', with me as self-appointed arbiter.

But if you happen to visit a couple of folk clubs somewhere in south Hampshire during the next year or two, you just might hear me singing one or more of the songs. And I hope I do those songs justice, and show respect to their unknown writers, and to the long tradition of folk song singers who have gone before.