we'll all have to wait till you produce your book on 'The Revised Veiw of World Folksong and Folklore' - too late for'Folkie Lucy' I'm afraid.

Fact is, Jim, any botanist will tell you the taxonomy of flora doesn't extend to their occult / folkloric symbolism, as far as such exists at all, consistent or otherwise. In other words, a plant is just a plant - it doesn't mean anything.

Sheela-na-Gig

Check out The Sheela-na-Gig Project.

As for 'The Black Death' myth - Alice Gomme pretty much kicked that one into touch back in the 1890s.

I understood The Black Death Myth only went back to James Leasor's The Plague & The Fire (1961). Could you elaborate?

I wonder, can the riddle songs carry symbolic weight without having an actual meaning as such? There's certainly a heavy clout of imagery going on here, even in Lay the bent to the bonny broom, the incantatory jouissance of which might just go beyond erotic euphemism, or even understanding, into realms of the surreal. Just a weary thought anyway...

Now I'm going back out to the overflow pipe with the H4 and this time I'm going to get sing the words in the right order to the right melody! Watch this space...