The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #162666 Message #3886756
Posted By: Vic Smith
04-Nov-17 - 11:59 AM
Thread Name: New Book: Folk Song in England
Subject: RE: New Book: Folk Song in England
it is as likely as not that it was carried into Ireland by the Northern singers who travelled to Scotland regularly to pick potatoes 'The tattie howkers'
It is a well-established fact that Scots songs travelled to Ireland since the time of the Cromwell planters; there is much evidence for this. It is also very interesting the way that the songs changed during that journey - the way that The Auld Beggarman becomes The Lame Poor Poor Man for instance.
What is much more difficult to go along with is that a multiplicity of collected versions refer to the Mountain of the Goddess in Greek Mythology - Mount Ida in Crete - and the prize that was won there and that this was not changed in the mouths of the people without reference to print.