Thinking further about ballad tunes in Britain and Appalachia has reminded me about the following. Some 30-odd years ago I recorded a number of songs from a singer called Ray Driscoll, who was then living in London. One song, unique to Ray and inspired by the Child Ballad of Lord Randal, was called "The Wild, Wild Berry" and soon became popular with singers who heard the recording. Ray also had a good version of another Child Ballad, namely "The Death of Queen Janes". He told me that he had learned it as a young man when he was working as a farm labourer in Shropshire. He had both words and tune from a fellow farm worker. What was particularly interesting was the fact that Ray's tune was identical to one collected for this ballad by Cecil Sharp from an Appalachian singer. So, had Ray's source learnt the song directly from Sharp's published Appalachian collection? Or was Ray's tune British, one which had travelled to American centuries ago and had survived unchanged? I actually suspect that somebody in England had picked the tune up from Sharp's collection and that was how Ray came to be using it. But, who knows...?