"So this is another ballad that it is highly likely to have had its origins in the broadside press but passed into oral tradition"
With respect Shimrod, we have no idea whether the ballad was already circulating in the tradition before it appeared on broadside.
It seems completely logical to be that broadside printers should avail themselves of whatever was around for their wares, after all, the ballad sellers of the 20th century here in Ireland were not writing new material for their ballad-sheets - why should they go to the bother when there was so much to draw on. We know that they were plagarists - Steve has already told us as much.
"If the written text was inaccessible to him, how would he have known it was wrong?"
The storyteller I was referring to, Packie Murrihey, was well able to read; I was referring to his attitude to published tales and songs.
Steve
"IMHO stands for 'In my humble opinion"
From the beginning of this argument your statements have been in somewhat definitive language; your first response to me was, did I "believe this stuff" and you talked about Travellers putting their songs "back" into print, as if your speculations were a done deal.
I've just managed to identify an old ballad collection without a title page which we bought years ago (Alexander Campbell's 'Sangs of Lowland Scotland' 1799) and noticed that the first two songs, 'The Gaberlunzie Man' and 'The Jolly Beggar' are credited to James V - do I believe that to be true because the anotholgist says so?
If you were referring to the Buchan collection as 'ludicrous' the controversy obviously is still running - with you at least. I've heard others make similar claims, usually on the basis that 'the people' did not possess the skill to have made such fine pieces (or, for that matter, any of the ballads). It's always struck me as an excellent collection. Texts similar to Buchan's have been turning up long after he joined the choir celestial; have a look at the Scots Travellers' versions of ballads - or even those turning up in Ireland. There is no reason to believe that Buchan over-edited them and they certainly weren't written by his blind packman.
Cap'n;
It sounds Irish - listen to it and you'll see what we mean.
Jim Carroll