Migration and adaptation of popular Balladry in the US Appalachian region

Abstract

Scottish ballads were carried to isolated hamlets in the Appalachian Mountains of North America through successive waves of migration in the 17th and 18th centuries. The cultural diffusion of ballad singing underwent divergence as the songs were transmitted orally. Place names, local festivals, and current events were especially plastic components of this process. In the beginning of the 20th century, the intrusion of the radio and rural disturbances brought about by the coal industry functioned as barriers to cultural transmission of the ballads. Even so, songs were kept alive as evidenced by the metamorphosis of My Boy Tammie into Billy Boy and the more recent resurrection of The Elfin Knight into popular culture as Scarborough Fair by Simon and Garfunkel. The relationship between orality and literacy is multi‐faceted and difficult to categorise and evaluate.