Well, DonD, that's pretty much the way I do it too.

Many years back, I made a change in a ballad I had recently learned. I thought the ending was a bit wimpy, so I changed one word which, in turn, changed the whole conclusion of the ballad itself. It punched it up dramatically, and to my mind, improved it. Then, at a party, I sang it in the presence of one of my English professors, who was also a ballad scholar. He asked me where I'd learned that version. I confessed what I had done and threw myself on his mercy.

He said that if a collector or academician made changes (as Percy, Scott, and others did) that he considered poor scholarship. But if a performer made changes, that was entirely different. "Troubadours and other singers used to do it all the time," he said. "That, after all, is the 'folk process.'" He said that he didn't think it was a good idea to make indescriminate changes, but if a particular singer felt there was a good reason for the change, go ahead and do it. Then he used an expression that stuck with me ever since. He called it "minstrel's prerogative." I like that.

Don Firth