"If we can avoid the importance of anonymity"
Why; it is a common factor in folksong, and therefore of significance?
It has been your and your mentor's practice to avoid any awkward questions, (to the extent of demanding that they not be asked). Edicts, laying down laws, unqualified pronouncements = blind faith as far as I can see.
"I don't think we have an argument."
I don't think you do either - agreement at last (but that's not what you meant, is it?)
Another example to chew on ( still hoping for an explanation of Barbara Allen, The Blind Beggar, Unfortunate rake - if not by folk process and oral tradition).
Child gives 2 versions of The Maid and the Palmer (Child 21), both from print, Furnival and Kirkpatrick Sharpe the last published (1880) being a fragment remembered by Sir Walter Scott. Bronson does not include it at all as there are no tunes given for it.
In the late sixties Tom Munnelly recorded a full version of it from Traveller John Reilly, a non-literate traveller from a non-literate community, under the title 'Well Below The Valley'. If not an oral tradition - what?
"I picked up a copy of Sheelagh Douglas's......."
A book! Won't it be lonely or do you intend to buy another one to keep it company?
Hi Bryan;
"better to leave it on the shelf"
Never an intention of ours Bryan, just a feeling I get regularly from mind-numbing nonsense such as this.
Our wish to proliferate our material is evidenced by our CDs of field recordings and the fact that all our collection is freely available for access, albeit in (several) archives at present.
"Travelling Light and Living Doll"
Have always accepted that there are good clubs such as your own - my question is - how many - and why do we always seem to stumble over the shitty ones?
Jim Carroll