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For anyone interested in the subject, the Oxford Bodleian Library has an online collection of broadside ballads, which date back quite a long time in the UK: ht

For anyone interested in the subject, the Oxford Bodleian Library has an online collection of broadside ballads, which date back quite a long time in the UK: http://ballads.bodleian.ox.ac.uk http://ballads.bodleian.ox.ac.uk The broadside ballad was often used for news of the times, and it was common to set a new story to a tune that the general public already knew. Where it gets very interesting is how multiple folk songs spawn over time from one ballad or folk tale, such as "Scarborough Fair" and "Acre of Land" being vastly different (probable) descendants of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elfin_Knight https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elfin_Knight.

fuzzfactor 6y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Knoxville_Girl https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Knoxville_Girl It's quite grim but one reason so many nearby mountain folk have always been familiar with it might be if there were so few settlers in the mid 1700's that a single Englishman could have made every settler familiar with it as an already-old recognized traditional pre-Knoxville version toward the very beginning of settlement. Eventually, after Knoxville arose the local Knoxville version could have been coined in about 1800 when there was still such a small population that it became almost universally known that way since then. So a true tale of a British murder in 1683 was possibly carried forward since then largely by a hillbilly society not even highly focused on the arts of reading & writing. If not so accurately, as a cautionary tale in order to accomodate the attention-getting engagement needed to preserve relevance regardless that the crime really didn't happen in Knoxville. It's even possible that an Appalchian returning to Ireland brought the ballad back there and the Irish version may not have come directly from England.
- robotmay 6y ago
  Ooh thank you, this is one I wasn't aware of :D One shared heritage song between the US and UK that I've known about for a long time is "St James Infirmary", the great blues song: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._James_Infirmary_Blues https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._James_Infirmary_Blues. Interestingly an Appalachian song on which it's believed to be based was collected by Cecil Sharp, who collected and preserved a lot of our English folk song and dance and is the basis for much of our current knowledge (as our folk scene kinda disappeared for a while).

fuzzfactor 6y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Knoxville_Girl https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Knoxville_Girl It's quite grim but one reason so many nearby mountain folk have always been familiar with it might be if there were so few settlers in the mid 1700's that a single Englishman could have made every settler familiar with it as an already-old recognized traditional pre-Knoxville version toward the very beginning of settlement. Eventually, after Knoxville arose the local Knoxville version could have been coined in about 1800 when there was still such a small population that it became almost universally known that way since then. So a true tale of a British murder in 1683 was possibly carried forward since then largely by a hillbilly society not even highly focused on the arts of reading & writing. If not so accurately, as a cautionary tale in order to accomodate the attention-getting engagement needed to preserve relevance regardless that the crime really didn't happen in Knoxville. It's even possible that an Appalchian returning to Ireland brought the ballad back there and the Irish version may not have come directly from England.

robotmay 6y ago
Ooh thank you, this is one I wasn't aware of :D One shared heritage song between the US and UK that I've known about for a long time is "St James Infirmary", the great blues song: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._James_Infirmary_Blues https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._James_Infirmary_Blues. Interestingly an Appalachian song on which it's believed to be based was collected by Cecil Sharp, who collected and preserved a lot of our English folk song and dance and is the basis for much of our current knowledge (as our folk scene kinda disappeared for a while).