mainlymcpfolk

MCP server that gives Claude deep knowledge of British folk music via Mainly Norfolk.

Ask about Martin Carthy's discography, find recordings of Child Ballad 84, look up who's covered "Reynardine", get lyrics to "Tam Lin" - the full encyclopaedia of English folk tradition at your fingertips.

Tools

| Tool | What it does | | -------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------ | | search_folk | Search for artists, songs, albums, ballad numbers | | get_page | Read any page - lyrics, history, versions, bios | | child_ballads | Browse the 305 Child Ballads with optional filtering | | laws_index | Browse Laws Index (American ballads of British origin) | | artist_discography | Get full discography for any artist | | record_labels | Browse folk labels (Topic, Fellside, etc.) |

Install

bun install

Connect to Claude Desktop

Add to ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "folk": {
      "command": "bun",
      "args": ["run", "FULL_PATH_TO/mainlymcpfolk/src/index.ts"]
    }
  }
}

Replace FULL_PATH_TO with the actual path where you cloned this repo.

Restart Claude Desktop. Tools appear in the 🔧 menu.

Caching

Results cached 1 hour in memory. Be nice to Mainly Norfolk - it's a labour of love maintained by one person.

Credit

All data from Mainly Norfolk, an encyclopaedic resource for English folk music named after Peter Bellamy's first solo album.