Jeri, To Be a Pilgrim is in rousing 4/4 time. If indeed Steeleye Span did it in 5/4 then it brings me to a point which I was going to post anyway, namely, that I doubt very much whether any of the songs listed above in 5/4 started life off as 5/4.

The fact that they are in manuscripts in 5/4 says more about the collectors and the performers rather than the songs themselves.

Anybody who has seen June Tabor perform (to take but one example) will know exactly how some singers cannot resist the temptation to take a simple song and make it complicated.

Murray