Going back to the thread topic for a moment, one of the things I like about the BBC's Sharp initiative is that the parameters have been set very narrow, which always makes for a better challenge: "here are three songs and three tunes from Sharp's collection, now let's see what you can do with them". The focus is on interpretation, whether in a straightforward unaccompanied vocal or melodeon instrumental, or something radical, perhaps involving other musical styles (FWIW I love what Solarference do with trad songs and computer samples). I hope plenty of people have a go.

On the subjects raised by our anonymous 'GUEST' (why so coy, still?), I noticed several references to 'The Archive' (with a capital 'A'). Is this the Vaughan Williams Library, the Full English, or what? If it's a new venture then it surely deserves its own thread.

I'm not sure whether the "Rambling Sid Rumpos of the 1960s" referred to the likes of Harry Cox and Sam Larner, or revivalists like MacColl, Killen, Carthy etc. Either way it's a horribly crass comment, coming from someone apparently associated with EFDSS.

Lastly, re 'The Outlandish Knight':
"Sally's arrangement of Outlandish Knight for the CSH Choir cut the Parrot Coda... [because] it comes from another Ballad entirely, Young Hunting, and so wasn't really part of the Ballad"

I fear the parrot's been squawking around 'The Outlandish Knight' since the earliest printed copy in the 17th century, which predates the oldest 'Young Hunting' that I know of. At least one scholar suggested the borrowing was actually the other way round. Either way, the parrot section occurs in the vast majority of 150-plus collected versions of Child 4, so to suggest "it wasn't really part of the ballad" is way off the mark. Check out David Atkinson's essay 'Motivation, Gender and Talking Birds' in 'The English Traditional Ballad'. It's not compulsory to sing all the verses of any ballad, so there's no need to pretend they "don't belong".