"(Sorry, Jim. I know you probably will balk at this.)"
I probably will Steve -all I ask is something more than gut reaction to back up such statements.
The humourous ballads in the Child repertoire are full of folk humour, wonder how it ended up at the broadside hack's desk unless he lifted it from the folk.
'Long Johnny More.' Young Highlander goes to London, catches the eye of the King's daughter and gets sentenced to death for his pains.
He gets a message via a 'little wee boy' to his family at The Back of Bennachie; they run down from Aberdeenshire in two days and, when they are refused entrance at London Gate, kick in "three feet of London wall". Having ascertained that that he hasn't harmed any of the "wee Londoners" they free him and they, along with the king's daughter, return to The Back of Benachie. When the king threatens to hang the little wee boy they warn him "we'll come to the funeral and we will bury thee"
Come on Steve - it's the stuff of folk tales - it reads like an Alec Stewart Jack Tale
Jaik knocked on the castle door and the king answered it.
"Hello Jaik", fit dae ye want?
"Hello King, I've come for the job"
Then there's the seditious 'Queen Eleanor's Confession'
Henry II's queen, Eleanor of Aquitane is on her death bed and she calls for two friars to make her dying confession. Henry gets word of it and and he the Earl Marshall, one of her former lovers, disguise themselves as friars to take the confession. The Earl Marshall makes the king swear that no harm will come to him, no matter what they hear.
The queen confesses that not only was Earl Marshall her lover, but one of her sons, her favourite, was the product of their liason.
"Had I not sworn by the hilt of my sword,
And by the heavens so high,
That not one drop of your blood would be spilt,
Earl Marshall, you would hang high".
A dangerous song to put your name to, and folk to the core.
The Earl of Erroll, has to prove his ability to father children because his newly wed wife has claimed that "Errol's no' a man" so her family won't pa the dowry.
A 'worm's-eye view of the nobility.
All those comic songs where the poor, particularly the women, triumph over the rich and powerful; Knight and the Shepherd's Daughter, The Baffled Knight, Broomfield Hill, - all folk utterence.
The Crafty Farmer - a folk biter-bit.
Get Up And Bar The Door, Wife Wrapt in a Wether's Skin, The Devil and The Farmer's Wife - domestic comedies.
Keach in the Creel - a centuries old folk tale - attributed to Ancient India in one collection and still popular among the rural labourers of Ireland. We recorded a cante-fable version of it from an Irish Traveller.
The humour of these songs screams 'folk'.
Compare any of these to the ham-fistedly contrived products of the broadside presses.
Sorry Steve - my gut tells me something totally different, no matter which particular hack put his name to them.
Jim Carroll