Jim does well to remind us again of Hogg's mother & Scott.

Re what Art Thieme said just above, I quote again from inlay to a record I made 20 years ago, Butter&Cheese&All [Brewhouse 8904]: "These songs are all traditional, but I believe all will have been more or less consciously modified in the process of making them my own". Surely we all do that - esp if we don't want to sound like Carthy·or·whoever·soundalikes. To quote [sorry but its true & I think it relevant here] a review of a folk-evening I gave at Eye [Suffolk] Theatre a few years ago: the local paper man there wrote "He would address us in pure middle-class tones and then go right into the spirit of a song without putting on the folk voice"; which I value as one of the nicest things anyone has ever said about me.

Re living forms of folklore: as well as rugby songs, we must remember the Urban Legend [see works of Jan Brunvand and Rodney Dale]; and especially the JOKE; which can still blanket the world absolutely & instantaneously & unaccountably from east-west & from pole-pole by oral transmission — & ALWAYS DID even before radio & tv & WWW. Much speculation has gone on for a long time as to HOW this phenomenon occurs — an entertaining fantasy-sf explanation suggesting extra-terrestrial implantation is in the great Isaac Asimov's story 'Jokester', well worth a read to anyone interested in the Folk Process.