As I understand it from the discussion, "Fakenham Fair" has been presented as a truly traditional song, yet there is no evidence that it ever was in "tradition," if tradition means many singers making many changes and adjustments. The text we have appears to be the sole text, and a very modern one too.

Right from Jon Boden's OPs there has been doubt expressed as whether Fakenham Fair is truly a traditional song. No one here, least of all myself, has suggested that it is. As for being modern, it feels uninformed by later revival ideas of the mid-50s onwards; I reckon post-war, late 1940s, written by a knowing hand versed in various idioms of old popular song both English and American. In America, this wouldn't be an issue of course - or would it? Raking through the Harry Smith collection one is dealing with more idiomatic musical creativity by way of a musical tradition than with hoary artefacts of traditions per se. So Folk by art & context, which is what we have here, and very much ante-revival.

To quote Lighter from his post of 22nd June last year "recent" to the likes of us means "only forty to fifty years old." To a great many people, in other words, the song is "pretty damned old."

Happily I might disassociate from the 'likes of you' in as much as I am of the mind that 40-50 years in pretty damned old in terms of living folklore - be it song, tune, custom, or story. Things endure, in many cases entirely 'innocent' of the revival, much less their status as 'folklore', which is the key here given the nature of the piece. That said, I'd like to push that envelope here to 65 years, which ties in with Bullen's grandfather (no one says when he wrote it, Yarmouth Town likewise) and the nature of the text as discussed by Pip et al. And I still say Bellamy's adoption of the song (and his later use of it in his parody of a James Brown big up as Mr Fakenham Fair as well as Mr Yarmouth Town) is pretty crucial in our understanding, appreciation & enjoyment of the sort of thing we're dealing with here, and why I have no problem whatsoever in calling it a Folk Song according to any definition of the term you might like to come up with.