The 'original', or earliest known, versions of many 'folk' songs are actually printed broadsides. Examples such as Black Velvet Band, All around my hat, Loch Lomond, William and Diana (on which Villikens & Dinah was a parody), Warlike lads of Russia can all be found in the Bodley Ballad collection.

Should we add references to these as well?

---

You betcha. We certainly DO want references (and links to references), but I think we need to see all versions of a song, all in the same thread. That should make it a lot easier to make comparisons. If at all possible, we need to see dated transcriptions of the earliest versions of songs - that helps a lot when considering copyright matters. In fact, I think I'd like to see postings of most of the versions cited in the Traditional Ballad Index (as long as there are significant differences).
-Joe Offer-