Malcolm said:

"
When I Was On Horseback, incidentally, was recorded by Peter Kennedy from the traveller Mary Doran, near Belfast in July (according to Kennedy; the Roud Index gives it as August) 1952. It appears to be the only example found of that particular branch, which may have to be considered -unless someone comes up with another- a dead-end for your purposes."

You mean the same as here?

I'd always assumed that:

When I was on horseback, wasn't I pretty?
When I was on horseback, wasn't I gay?
Wasn't I pretty when I entered Cork City
And met with my downfall on the fourteenth of May?

... was a backformation by SS from Laredo:

Twas once in the saddle I used to go dashing,
Twas once in the saddle I used to go gay.
First to the dram-house, and then to the card-house,
Got shot in the breast, and I'm dying today.

... but a 1952 dating would counter this. Also, unless the Mary Doran text is simply identical to the Steeleye Span song, that would give two texts.

Robin.

[At which point I glumly consider how to deal with Malcolm's elegant demolition-job on the 1790 dating. For some lunatic reason, mostly to do with my hitting the wrong key on the photocopier, I seem to have ended up with a 87% reduction of Lloyd. Which I can't read. I'll see if I can OCR this, and post the relevant bit which Malcolm summarised.

Lomax I was given second-hand by the Irish poet Trevor Joyce. Malcolm's 1808 dating would obviously pre-date this. Though I'm becoming more and more suspicious of Atkinson's Root&Branch piece. Leave alone it's printed on an A3 sheet which is a total bugger to try to scan.

So (if Malcolm will forgive me yet more repetition) we're now at the point where the very beginning of the tradition, the two 1790s Irish fragments, are challenged. And the only primary text which has come up is the Bodleian scan of "The Unfortunate Lad".



Has Blind Willie's "The Dying Crapshooter's Blues" ever been lodged on Mudcat?

Off to OCR Lloyd ...

R.]