Hi Dave,
I'm never sure on this one. The versions we have recorded (there are others) tend to be in fragmentary form and somewhat garbled. One singer we met claimed to have written Freeborn Man himself. I feel somehow that if they had passed into the Travellers tradition there would have been more articulate, fuller versions with changes that came from the creative efforts of the Travellers rather than from mishearing. I do know Ewan was extremely pleased when he heard the Travellers had taken to it.
One of the quotes I like best about his songs was in American scholar Professor Horace Beck's book Folklore And The Sea which describes Shoals of Herring as 'typical of the songs popular among fishing fleets today'.
I agree with you about the end of 'The Travelling People'; it still makes the hairs on the back of my neck twitch. Parker's reaction to 'Labour councillor and Justice of the Peace' Harry Watton's "exterminate" statement was the only time Charles ever spoke on a Radio Ballad. I was told (by Charles) that the producers' refusal to remove the statement from the programme was the reason there were no more Radio ballads.
Jim Carroll