Steve,
I am not referring to the plots of the tales and ballads coinciding - I am talking about the use of their language and form.
"The main reason why bothy ballads occurred and are almost exclusive to the NE is because young men were thrown together in the bothy with little money and little opportunity for other forms of amusement, under quite oppressive conditions."
This is EXACTLY a description of life at sea, particularly on the whaling ships whose trips could be anything up to a six month duration, yet our disagreements started on this thread with a direct reference to forbitters - which you dismissed out of hand as products of broadside hacks - on what grounds? Again, I ask, do you believe a Seven Dials broadside hack could and did compose Harry Cox's Van Diemans' Land, or Rounding The Horn?
The Irish farms produced similar songs to those from the bothies because of the similarity of conditions, there are a number of navvies songs from similar situations.
Working people have always felt the need to record their experiences in verse and prose. Walter Pardon's family had a small repertoire of union songs around the re-establishment of Joseph Arch's Agricultural Workers Union by George Edwards in the 1900s.
I believe, based on our own experience, that we would have had far more such songs, providing us with a solid link between the local and national repertoires, had the early collectors not dismissed them out of hand. As it is, what little we do have is more than enough for me.
I see little point in my submitting a list of songs for you to produce composers for, unless you can show that the composers originated the songs - which you have agreed you can't.
I do not dispute that many/even most of our folksongs have appeared on broadsides at one time or another; the pioneering work of Bob Thomson did much to bring that to light back in the sixties, and my friend John Moulden has done a similar job on Irish broadsides. My dispute is that I don't believe they originated there (for all the reasons I have given here and elsewhere) - unless you can provide us with something more than a list of names.
I believe the bulk of our songs came directly from the experiences and the encapsulated the language of the people represented in them.
Of course the folk absorbed written pieces, 'Black Eyed Susan', and 'Caroline and Her Young Sailor', to name a couple (isn't the 'drawing room window in the latter a dead giveaway for that one').
For me, the broadside hacks will never be more than an interesting side-line to the main body of our traditional repertoire, until shown otherwise.
Jim Carroll