Bonnie is right, of course, that the words of 'She Moved through the Fair' are by Padraic Colum, but it is also worth mentioning that they are based in part on a traditional song, 'Out the Window'. I think the same is true of 'Down in the Sally Gardens'--a poem by Yeats, to be sure, but based on an old broadside song, 'You Rambling Boys of Pleasure', and sung to a traditional tune, 'An Traigh Mughdhorna'--'The Maids of Mourne'. I believe that Herbert Hughes is responsible for wedding both the Colum and the Yeats word sets to traditional tunes.

I think Gordon Lightfoot's 'Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald' is often taken for a trad. song. Then, let's see, there's 'The Rose of Tralee'; there are a number of Russian songs often wrongly called traditional (Stenka Razin--you know, 'Volga, Volga, mati Volga, Volga, Russkaia reka'), Kudiyar (about the bandit who becomes a monk), even 'Odnozvuchno gremit kolokolchik'--what's it called in English?--record jackets have been a big source of misinformation of this sort. CD inserts are too, but they are less guilty because there is usually less information, hence less opportunity to get it wrong.

Stephen