Sigh.....
"No-one has even hinted, let alone stated, that the English were not capable of, or indeed didn't compose songs."
Suggesting that 90% plus of our folk songs were originated from the pens of bad poets - the hacks - is saying exactly that - as is your equating loccaly made songs (when I raised the matter) as the scribbling of retired people with little else to do
What do you suggest our traditional singers were other than parrots repeating whet they had bought Steve
I agree entirely with Vic, though I dought if our meanings are the same - it is "racist" to suggest that the English people didn't make our songs as the Irish now obviously dis
What part exactly do you claim the singers had in the compostion of our folk songs Steve - have you really changed your mind
Ot maybe I misraed and you didn't say they had to buy them ?

Not only did the songs and stories sweel Ebgland/Britain - they were found in Europe
Britain was an Empire - it's soldiers, sailors, peddlers, Travellers, itinerant labourers..... covered the world
Stop making excuses - we know these songs proliferated wherever the English set foot - at home and abroad

If, has as been pointed out, it only takes one person to make a community literary, then equally it only takes one singer to spread a song wherever he/she travels

We don't know for certain who made our folk-songs - we never shall, we can only deal in probabilities
It is highly improbable that desk bound bad poets forced to work at a rate of knots under pressure could possibly have made songs as intimate and insightful of the rural human condition as is to be found in our folk songs
It is far likelier that those who experienced the events described did
It really never gets more difficult than that
Jim