Mudcat Café message #3880557 The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #162666   Message #3880557
Posted By: Lighter
05-Oct-17 - 08:57 PM
Thread Name: New Book: Folk Song in England
Subject: RE: New Book: Folk Song in England
> I know that 'The Streams of Lovely Nancy' was printed on a broadside, but it seems hard to imagine that a broadside writer would have consciously sat down and penned so many non-sequiturs.

Semi-seriously, what if he was drunk?

More seriously, why would a rural singer be more likely to have done so?

Someone, hack or otherwise, who was vaguely familiar with the convoluted diction of some 17th and 18th century poetry might conceivably have thought that this was how a lyric was supposed to sound.

Just my 2 cents.