The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #131826   Message #2978466
Posted By: Brian Peters
02-Sep-10 - 11:08 AM
Thread Name: Child Ballads survived in oral trad.
Subject: RE: Child Ballads survived in oral trad.
"Lizzie Higgins sings a version of Alison Gross..."

Indeed - one of the many ballads collected too late for inclusion in Bronson. However, I don't think Steeleye Span based their version on Lizzie's.

It's also a shame that Child and Bronson's volumes include so little from Ireland. Presumably there were no Irish collections analagous to Percy's and Scott's for Child to trawl through, and much of the Irish material collected in the 20th C was too late for Bronson. However, as Jim said, the ballads that we do have from Ireland show that the tradition there must have been very rich. We should always bear in mind how patchy, geographically and temporally, the ballad collections are - depending as they did on the enthusaism and whims of particular collectors in particular places.

Thanks Susan for giving us exact figures re Child / Bronson.

Roberto: I have just completed a new recording, however it includes just the one Child Ballad - The Banks of Airdrie (Child 14) - plus a couple that he rejected: the well-known Brake of Briars and the less well-known Devil's Courtship.