"Yes please, Jim. I would."
Sorry Dave - it's still up on the other thread
Go look it up yourself (search just above "snide" - that should find it)

"has been shown within Mudcat to be a contested one."
The three man and a dog that make up Mudcat (most of whom refuse to discuss origins) - tradition has been clearly established and defined since the middle of the 19th century and there are libraries of books on the subject- those who dispute it usually do so because it's inconvenient not to

"I will totally understand if this post is deleted."
I would like to see your introducing Walter's so-called eating habits onto this forum deleted but - hey - we can't always get what we want
I remind you that it was Pseudo who introduvced Joe into this discussion, not me
I'm willing to leave it the - I suggest you do the same

Brian
The question of broadside in Walter's family is a somewhat confused one
Walter certainly thought his grandfather had them but, as his main source of informant, Uncle Billy, was dead when Walter began to take an active interest, nothing is guaranteed clear
Walter's grandfather's family were extremely poor - so much so that he was forced to leave the land and go to sea and his family were deposited in the local workhouse - they were referred to locally as "Mother hen and her poor chickens"
Broadsides would have been a luxury, certainly in later days

The whole question of broadsides is being far too simplistically in my opinion
Thede "hacks" were notoriously bad poets producing songs that were 'chalk' to the traditional songs 'cheese'
Did the singers but them, take them to their poorly lit cottages and set out to knock of the corners
Usually, the transformation of a broadside usually depended on a healthy oral tradition to use as a polishing tool - as far as I can make out, none such existed around Knapton
Walter's family were involved in church singing yet there's no sign of that influence in any of his songs and his texts are pretty good, even though he's added verses to some of them

From our work in Ireland, I have become convinced that the broadside to oral tradition journey wa very much a two-way street and that the hacks were quite likely to have scribbled plots and verses of traditional songs from visiting tradesmen and made the sow's ears that appeared on the streets
Singers from Clare certainly bought the 'ballads' (Travellers' song-sheets'), but the two impressions we got were either that "you didn't mess with the printed word' or they were used to fortify already existing songs
Tom Lenihan said "you couldn't trust them" but used a coule to fortify part songs
Mikeen McCarthy described going into the printers in Tralee with his father's songs and reciting them over the counter in order to turn them into song-sheets - a printed oral tradition produced by a non-literate Traveller
Mikeen said he responded to suggestions like "why don't you take your daddy's .... into the printer - we'd bu that one
We asked Mikeen if he ever know of songs being written for 'The Ballads' - he replied, "why, we had more than enough among ourselves

I'm trying to write some of this up at present (when everything else if out of the way)
Jim