Child ballads were not only avaialble in Child! He was part of, and further stimulated a general litereary interest in the ballad form which resulted in a great many books of ballads (many later ones were neary all 'Child Ballads' as he had effectively defined the canon!) Many of our books we got were of this type: - Bell: Earl Ballads & Ballads of the Peasantry, Sidgewick: Ballads & Poems, Tomson: Border Ballads, Sidgewick: Popular Ballads of Olden Time, Milner & Sowerby's Life & Ballads of Robin Hood, Quiller Couch: Oxford Book of Ballads, Smith & Soutar: A Book of Ballads for Boys & Girls. etc., etc.

The literary interest in ballad form at the end of the 19th century had waned and such books were avaialble very cheaply in second-hand book shops.

For tunes, you nicked them from recorded versions - and then came Bronson! And regular trips to the library.

Good luck with the dissertaion.

Tom Brown