minstrel: The Ballad Book  mn13189 at WCUVAX1.WCU.EDU mn13189 at
WCUVAX1.WCU.EDU Thu Feb 27 08:35:09 PST 1997  On Thu, 27 Feb
1997, Greg Lindahl wrote: > The notion of "anonymous authorship"
of ballads is a bunch of bull, in > my opinion. That's what
underlies the notion that ballads with known > authors are not
really traditional... But, of course, there are many > opinions
on this topic.  Yes, there are a lot of opinions on this.  And
there is no fine line.  It is instead a very wide fuzzy grey
area.  For instance, I (as a researcher of songs) like to know,
to the best of my ability, the origins and history of a song.
This is because I enjoy studying this sort of thing.  So often I
am not content with the label, "traditional."  For instance, the
Burns' song, "Auld Lang Sine" is known to be based on a
traditional song that Burns knew.  But the earliest *written*
song with a title and chorus similar to "Auld Lang Sine" with
the same meter was written in the early-mid 17th century (100
years prior to Burns) a