I am not sure that adding harmonies, either by a revival performer or Sharp counts as 'mediation'. It is deliberate and openly done act. Similarly the Aran jumpers, flat caps on stage and accompaniment style rooted in different traditions.

Way up this thread I said that one line of thought I have had whilst reading about 'mediation' of Folk music is "have I, during the 'second revival', been conned or unintentionally misled?"

I still have the vinyl I bought second hand in the late 1960's the sleeve notes on which introduced me to 'folk music'. So I have been listening to them and reading the notes. Purely by chance I started off with a selection that covers most of the names people still talk about.

No, I wasn't conned. Everyone was open about what they were doing. Nothing I have read since - including the moaning and nostalgia on that interminable 'state of UK Folk Music' (or whatever it was called) thread leaves me thinking that those people were doing anything they weren't telling me about. I think Bill Leader's notes on a couple of early Topic samplers were excellent.

But maybe I am the sort of skeptic who enjoys bubbles being popped. I react with glee at snippets like Walter Pardon's family singing "My Grandfather's Clock", the Coppers editing some bawdy stuff out of the family repertoire, Fred Jordan topping up his repertoire, Suffolk singers have songs from the News of the World stitched onto brown paper and Scan Tester playing "Eidelweiss" at a festival session.