" I hereby promise to stop throwing back Jim's arrows."
Tsk, tstk, tsk!!!
As I said, your behaviour is pretty conclusive proof that you haVE no case
"As I already stated Sam's and Walter's versions pretty much follow the broadside"
Which doesn't say that the broadside wasn't taken from an earlier version and most certainly sounds as is it might have been
As I said - go listen to them singing it.
"Uncle Walter's folk song repertoire which his grandfather got from broadsides"
Walter's uncle's grandfather got some of his songs from broadsides - Walter carefully pointed out which and said quite cearly why he (Walter) didn't consider them "the real old folk songs"
What's all this trying to prove Steve?
Nobody is disputing the fact that as many as you claim appeared,/FONT>
Unless you can show otherwise, you cannot prove a single one of them originated there
"Perhaps you could start, Jim?"
Where to begin
Try does anybody here actually believe that working people were unable or unwilling to make the songs we know as folk songs"
If the answer is yes - why?
If the answer is no, is there any reason to believe that they didn't, as everybody has issued up to now, including those who were alive when the tradition was in full swing as was the broadside trade?
Plenty more - but that will do to begin with (though it will have to wait till tomorrow - a new series of 'Silent Witness' and I've spent far too long debating the more unpleasant side of this already - a stomach can only take so much in one day!
Jim Carroll