Talk:Polly Vaughn

Molly Bhán

I don't doubt that Molly Ban is a common English name (that's what the singers I know call it), but looking at the English form Vaughn and knowing that feminine adjectives lenite, is there a tradition of calling this 'Molly Bhán'? It's just odd that the English form underlies better Irish grammar than the psuedo-Gaelic does. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.162.33.134 (talk) 15:58, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

I do! A search on the Great Britain Family Names surname profiler doesn't show any instances of the surname Ban. The name Bann occurs in the 1881 census, mostly in Birmingham and at a rate of 13 per million. On the other hand, bean is the Irish Gaelic word for "woman". Joe Fogey (talk) 08:53, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

In some versions the unfortunate young woman is called Molly Bawn, which could easily be a mishearing of Vaughan or vice versa. Joe Fogey (talk) 08:56, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

Sections not sourced, Rifle interpretation

There seems to be a lot of unsourced speculation or original research here. This is especially the case for the rifle hypothesis. There's even a contradictory parenthetical statement in the paragraph. All of the hypothetical statements without sources should probably be removed. — ★Parsa ☞ talk 16:21, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

Contradictory statement

"Moreover, there are no versions known before 1806 [there are number of versions from 1765 to 1806]. We would have expected earlier versions or fragments. This down-to-earth interpretation of the song is rare."

There are no versions before 1806 and then there are a number of versions before 1806. Which is it? Or should there be no versions AFTER 1806. Spiel (talk) 02:59, 27 March 2021 (UTC)