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

# mise
mise use -g npm:mainlymcpfolk

# or npm
npm install -g mainlymcpfolk

Connect to Claude Desktop

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

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "folk": {
      "command": "bunx",
      "args": ["mainlymcpfolk"]
    }
  }
}

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.