ABSTRACT
In the latter half of the nineteenth century, questions of national origin became more important than ever to the leading personalities collecting and publishing Scottish songs. From a modern musicological vantage point, the whole notion of looking for origins in national popular music is recognized as being loaded with conceptual problems, not least because of the whole question of oral transmission - not to mention the fact that identifiably composed pieces consistently found their way into the ostensibly traditional music canon. Gelbart has commented that even early on in the eighteenth century, if a tune could be assigned to a particular country then it became 'cultural capital'. Much of the debate took place in private correspondence, and it is largely thanks to the surviving letters of Edinburgh librarian David Laing, and those of a Dundonian music bibliophile, Andrew Wighton, that we are able to explore these issues further today.
