XPost: uk.music.folk   
   From: {$news$}@meden.demon.co.uk   
      
   In message <4LudnXitFPPZsgbVnZ2dnUVZ8sDinZ2d@bt.com>, David Kilpatrick   
    writes   
   >William Black wrote:   
   >> "David Kilpatrick"  wrote in message   
   >>news:_tOdnf9Ab98mkAbVnZ2dnUVZ8q_inZ2d@bt.com...   
   >>   
   >>> Extremely difficult, as already explained. British folk song might   
   >>>yield  more; 'The Twa Corbies' is supposedly Scots, but the language   
   >>>is archaic  northern and there were English versions. 'The Lyke Wake   
   >>>Dirge' may have  roots that old as well.   
   >>  Doubtful.   
   >>  First recorded by Aubrey in the seventeenth century,  even if it   
   >>does have  Germanic roots in some of the language...   
   >>  It could well be,  like 'John Barleycorn', an early academic joke.   
   >>The sort  of thing that culminated in 'Ossian'...   
   >>   
   >   
   >What's interesting about academic jokes - or frauds - is that the   
   >audience they were aimed at must had some conception of what was being   
   >imitated for authenticity to be mistaken.   
   >   
   >It's very hard to find anything resembling a secular song before 1500   
   >even in the collections of the Bodleian, Roxburghe Club, etc - which I   
   >guess is why 'Sumer is a Cumin In' is about the only one ever quoted.   
      
   How old would "The Battle of Harlaw" or "The Agincourt Carol" be? - the   
   associated events are early 15th century.   
   >   
   >Mind you, I'm going on the editing done by late Victorian publishers   
   >trawling through this material. Someone diving back into these   
   >collections now might find 'unworthy' verses of an earlier date.   
   >   
   >David   
      
   --   
   Stewart Robert Hinsley   
      
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