Steve Roud is the founder of the Roud Folk Song Index

Roud Folk Song Index

The Roud Folk Song Index is a database of 300,000 references to over 21,600 songs that have been collected from oral tradition in the English language from all over the world...

 and an expert on folklore

Folklore

Folklore consists of legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales and customs that are the traditions of a culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared. The study of folklore is sometimes called...

 and superstition

Superstition

Superstition is a belief in supernatural causality: that one event leads to the cause of another without any process in the physical world linking the two events....

, resident in Maresfield

Maresfield

Maresfield is a village and civil parish in the Wealden District of East Sussex, England. The village itself lies 1.5 miles north from Uckfield; the nearby villages of Nutley and Fairwarp; and the smaller settlements of Duddleswell and Horney Common; and parts of Ashdown Forest all lie within...

, East Sussex, England. He was formerly Local Studies Librarian for the London Borough of Croydon

Croydon

Croydon is a town in South London, England, located within the London Borough of Croydon to which it gives its name. It is situated south of Charing Cross...

 and Honorary Librarian of the Folklore Society

Folklore Society

The Folklore Society was founded in England in 1878 to study traditional vernacular culture, including traditional music, song, dance and drama, narrative, arts and crafts, customs and belief...

, whose Committee he later rejoined.

The Roud Folk Song Index is a database of 143,000 references to songs that have been collected from oral tradition in the English language from all over the world. It is hosted on the web-site of the English Folk Dance and Song Society

English Folk Dance and Song Society

The English Folk Dance and Song Society was formed in 1932 when two organisations merged: the Folk-Song Society and the English Folk Dance Society. The EFDSS, a member-based organisation, was incorporated as a Company limited by guarantee in 1935 and became a Registered Charity The English Folk...

.