David Kilpatrick wrote: >maybe the ballads really go back even further to the > Bronze Age, and ALL iron is 'metal clear' while those old bronze swords > are 'metal broon'...
It's an interesting thought, and maybe not so far fetched. Take a look at Alan Garner's essay (he of 'Red Shift', 'The Owl Service' etc) 'Oral history and applied history in East Cheshire' (it's in his collection 'The Voice that Thunders'). Here he proposes the view, based on deductions from place names and topographical evidence in an archetypal 'Sleeping Warrior' story, that the story itself probably has its origins in some of the earliest communities in that part of the world - dated to the Bronze Age around 4,000 years ago. The story is still current in oral tradition around Alderley Edge. David Francis Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music & Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
