The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #69336   Message #2466817
Posted By: Malcolm Douglas
15-Oct-08 - 08:05 PM
Thread Name: Lyr Req: Sweet Fanny Adams
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Sweet Fanny Adams
It would seem that the DT file mentioned earlier was copied without attribution from John Paddy Browne's book Folk Songs of Old Hampshire (Horndean: Milestone Publications, 1987, 50-53). Browne himself frequently neglected to identify his sources, and there is no indication that I can find as to where he might have got the tune from. Since the text is precisely that of the broadside reproduced by Hindley, it may be that it and the tune had never met previously.

Brown mentions that 'at least four different' broadside accounts of the murder were issued, though he gives no useful details. For some information on one by the Norwich printer William Upcroft, see Roly Brown's article at Musical Traditions:

Glimpses into the 19th Century Broadside Ballad Trade No. 26: Norfolk printings of murder and execution (1) Material in the Norwich Millenium library