Somewhere there exists a recording ( I think by Peter Kennedy, althyough I'm open to correction ) of Jeannie Robertson talking about The Four Marys, and saying that some of the 'auld folk' rather than singing it used to 'say it - say it like a poetry'. He asked her to do the same and she apparently found it quite difficult, though she knew the song inside out. But the style she used to do it was very florid and over-intonated, quite unlike the way in which she sang it.