Songs of Love and Marriage

This is probably the commonest topic in traditional song. For example, along with songs of seduction, the theme has more than half of the songs in the Greig Duncan Collection from the Aberdeenshire area. There's a lot of topics, from grand passion, parting of lovers, the broken token theme, the trials and tribulations of marriage, and the loneliness of the ageing batchelor or spinster.

All anthologies will have a lot of these songs. One spcialising in the theme is:

• The Seeds of Love, Stephen Sedley, 1967, Essex Music. Lots of fine songs here, often collated from several sources, or "based on" a source.

Two anthologies with sections on love songs are: The Singing Island and Folk Songs of Britain and Ireland.

Two collections of sound recordings with love songs are: The Voice of the People and The Folk Songs of Britain.