Roud Folk Song Index

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The Roud Folk Song Index is a database of 143,000 references to over 5,900 songs that have been collected from oral tradition in the English language from all over the world. It is a combination of the Broadside Index (printed sources before 1900) and a "field-recording index". It subsumes all the previous well-known printed sources known to Francis James Child and more recent recorded audio sources from 1900 to 1975. Related songs are grouped under the same Roud number. The more ancient songs tend to occupy low numbers, but songs which are obscure are given higher numbers. This explains why "Sheath and Knife" (Child 16) is Roud 3960. If a trusted authority gives the name of a song but doesn't give the words, it is assigned Roud number 000. Until early 2006 the index was available only by subscribing to a CD, updated periodically. It can now be found at Vaughan Williams Memorial Library Online.

Steve Roud is the Local Studies Librarian in the London Borough of Croydon. He was formerly Honorary Librarian of the Folklore Society. He is the co-author of A Dictionary of English Folklore (2005, ISBN 0-19-860766-0). Starting in 1993 he input various fields to a database, listing the source singer (if known), their locality, the date of noting the song, the publisher (book or recorded source), plus other fields. In the past few years the numbers have been widely accepted in academic circles. The California State University's own on-line database includes Roud numbers up to number 5000. It many respects it is more informative than Roud's database, as it contains comments, but it draws on fewer sources. For example Steve Roud shows 22 sources for "Hind Etin" (Roud 33, Child 41), but CSU shows only one source.

For many who encounter folk songs only through modern CDs it comes as a surprise to discover that "Brigg Fair" (Roud 1083), "I'll Tell Me Ma" (Roud 2649) and "Cuckoo's Nest" (Roud 5407) are all undocumented before 1898. The most modern folk songs were still being discovered in the 1970s in the Ozark Mountains. Max Hunter's collection lists 1,600 such songs, but each minor variant is given a distinct number, making comparisons difficult.

There are several other indexes of songs, but probably Roud will eventually include all of them. Dozens of historical tune-books have been indexed, but nobody has yet attempted to bring them all together in one index. They are outside the scope of Roud's work.

[edit] List of folk songs by Roud number

1. "The Gypsy Laddie" (Child 200)
2. "The Streets of Laredo" (Laws B1)
3. "Garners Gay" ("Rue"; "The Sprig of Thyme")
4. "Lord Thomas and Fair Annet" (Child 73)
5. "The Three Ravens" (Child 26)
6. "Lamkin" (Child 93)
7. "The Female Highwayman" (Laws N21)
8. "The Twa Sisters" (Child 10)
9. "The Cruel Mother" (Child 20)
10. "Lord Randal" (Child 12)
11. "The Baffled Knight" (Child 112)
12. "The Elfin Knight" (Child 2)
13. "The Dowie Dens o Yarrow" (Child 214)
14. "The Daemon Lover" ("The House Carpenter") (Child 243)
15. "The Cruel Ship's Carpenter" ("The Gosport Tragedy"; "Pretty Polly") (Laws P36A/B)
16. "Frog Went A-Courting"
17. "The Three Butchers" ("Dixon and Johnson") (Laws L4)
18. "The Bramble Briar" ("The Merchant's Daughter"; "In Bruton Town") (Laws M32)
19. "The Jolly Thresher" ("Poor Man, Poor Man")
20. "The Fause Knight Upon the Road" (Child 3)
21. "Lady Isabel and the Elf Knight" (Child 4)
22. "Gil Brenton" (Child 5)
23. "Earl Brand" (Child 7)
24. "Erlinton" (Child 8)
25. "The Fair Flower of Northumberland" (Child 9)
26. "The Cruel Brother" (Child 11)
27. "Babylon", or, "The Bonnie Banks o Fordie" (Child 14)
28. "Hind Horn" (Child 17)
29. "Sir Lionel" (Child 18)
30. "Willie's Lyke-Wake" (Child 25)
31. "A-Growing" ("He's Young But He's Daily A-Growing") (Laws O35)
32. "Kempy Kay" (Child 33)
33. "Hind Etin" (Child 41)
34. "The Broomfield Hill" (Child 43)
35. "Tam Lin" (Child 39)
36. "Captain Wedderburn's Courtship" (Child 46)
37. "Proud Lady Margaret" (Child 47)
38. "The Twa Brothers" (Child 49)
39. "The King's Dochter Lady Jean" (Child 52)
40. "Young Beichan" (Child 53)
41. "Sir Patrick Spens" (Child 58)
42. "Fair Annie" (Child 62)
43. "Child Waters" (Child 63)
44. "Fair Janet" (Child 64)
45. "Lady Maisry" (Child 65)
46. "Lord Ingram and Chiel Wyet" (Child 66)
47. "Young Hunting" (Child 68)
48. "Lord Lovel" (Child 75)
49. "The Lass of Roch Royal" (Child 76)
50. "Sweet William's Ghost" (Child 77)
51. "The Unquiet Grave" (Child 78)
52. "Little Musgrave and Lady Barnard" (Child 81)
53. "Child Maurice" (Child 83)
54. "Bonny Barbara Allan" (Child 84)
55. "Prince Robert" (Child 87)
56. "Young Johnstone" (Child 88)
57. "Fause Foodrage" (Child 89)
58. "Jellon Grame" (Child 90)
59. "Fair Mary of Wallington" (Child 91)
60. "Beam of Oak"
61. "The Gay Goshawk" (Child 96)
62. "Brown Robyn" (Child 97)
63. "Johnie Scot" (Child 99)
64. "Willie o Winsbury" (Child 100)
65. "Willie o Douglas Dale" (Child 101)
66. "Tom Potts" (Child 109)
67. "The Knight and the Shepherd's Daughter" (Child 110)
68. "The Twelve Days of Christmas"
69. "Johnie Cock" (Child 114)
70. "A Gest of Robyn Hode" (Child 117)
71. "Robin Hood Rescuing Three Squires" (Child 140)
72. "Robin Hood and Queen Katherine" (Child 145)
73. "Sir Hugh", or, "The Jew's Daughter" (Child 155)
74. "Queen Eleanor's Confession" (Child 156)
75. "Gude Wallace" (Child 157)
76. "Johnie Armstrong" (Child 169)
77. "The Death of Queen Jane" (Child 170)
78. "Six Dukes Went a-Fishing"
79. "Mary Hamilton" (Child 173)
80. "Captain Car", or, "Edom o Gordon" (Child 178)
81. "The Laird o Logie" (Child 182)
82. "Jock o the Side" (Child 187)
83. "Archie o Cawfield" (Child 188)
84. "Hughie Grame" (Child 191)
85. "The Lochmaben Harper" (Child 192)
86. No record
87. "Jamie Douglas"; "Waly Waly"; "The Water Is Wide"; "When Cockleshells Turn Silver Bells (Child 204)
88. "Lord Delamere" (Child 207)
89. "Lord Derwentwater" (Child 208)
90. "Geordie" (Child 209)
91. "The Mother's Malison", or "Clyde's Water" (Child 216)
92. "The Broom of Cowdenknows" (Child 217)
93. "Katharine Jaffray" (Child 221)
94. "Lizie Lindsay" (Child 226)
95. "Glasgow Peggy" (Child 228)
96. "The Earl of Errol" (Child 231)
97. "Richie Story" (Child 232)
98. "Andrew Lammie" (Child 233)
99. "The Earl of Aboyne" (Child 235)
100. "Bonny Baby Livingston" (Child 222)

[edit] See also

• Child Ballads

[edit] External links

• Vaughan Williams Memorial Library Online featuring the complete Roud Folk Song Index
• The Traditional Ballad Index at California State University, Fresno featuring the first 5000 entries of the Roud Folk Song Index