Not many people have ever heard of Sharpe, Jack, never mind knowing anything about him. That puts you in a very useful position. What little I've read makes me see him as some sort of ballad broker along with David Laing, Laing travelling about the country passing ballads back and forth. Both collaborated on getting Buchan's highly suspect material through the press. Either they were part of the conspiracy or very naïve, or had some other motive.

Most of the current academic attitudes to the Scottish ballads is that the great bulk of them were written during the 18th century, and a few even later. Do you have any thoughts on this?