Well, I started the thread, and I'm disappointed by how bad temepred and confrontational some of the responses have been. I thought we were all united by a common love of the music.

My point with the brief definition has been demonstrated, perhaps unwittingly, by some of the responses.

One response says, in effect, "Tradition is that which has been handed down orally... and we need a good library to preserve it." QED.

The minute it is written down and archived and researched, it becomes different. Sharp not only saved the Morris, but he changed it forever. The same can be said of all of the song and tune collectors.

Kimber amended his costume, his presentation and even his opinions once he was plucked from obscurity to become an object of interest and celebrity for the middle classes. I'm sure he was not the only one.

Tradition is about ownership. How WE like to think WE have always done it. I say "like to think" because frankly few of us remember exactly what we did last year, but we remember the gist of it. Traditions develop accidentally, spontaneously, and flower - or sometimes die, to be replaced by another. Others persist for much longer. Sometimes the tradition is spoiled the first time someone points it out. I have seen this happen.

History is about research and detail. How we think THEY used to do it. We observe, record and sometimes attempt to recreate history, whereas we maintain traditions - sometimes without realising it.

Folk is a different thing again. The "folk community" is a small and marginal sub culture. As someone else wrote (I paraphrase) "Something that alienates 90% of the population can't be called "folk"."

I used to work in a back recess of a large office, sitting next to a friend who was very much "mainstream" from her local culture. I have an irritating habit of whistling or humming tunes as I work. When I hummed Buddy Holly songs, she knew all the words - yet Buddy Holly died long before she was born - and before I was born, in fact. However, if I hummed or whistled a so-called folk song, it meant nothing to her. We shared a knowledge of and liking of the music of a man who had died before we were born, yet we were nearly a generation apart in ages.

When you go to a working class wedding in the UK, everyone, young and old, dances to certain records: The Birdy Song, Agadoo (push pineapple), Hi Ho Silver Lining and so on. No one really likes these songs, and no one dances to them anywhere except weddings. That is a contemporary folk custom - albeit a rather degenerate one.

When I was a rocker in the late 1970s, we all danced "the greasy bop" to The Rolling Stones and Status Quo. No one knew why; we just did it. The same dance was performed (in circles instead of parallel lines) to certain 1950s rock and roll songs at rock and roll clubs I frequented. When I read Buddy Holly's biography, there was mention of the same dance (then called the "dirty bop") being performed by individuals in the crowd at a gig in Lubbock in about 1956. Tell me that that isn't an evolving traditional dance form, and a folk custom.

I've been involved in "folk" music and the Morris for the best part of 25 years. I've danced "traditional" dances, learned dances from the book, written a few, changed a few. I've written songs, sung a few so-called traditional ones, and played traditional tunes as well as ones I've written. I wouldn't characterise my position as "willful ignorance" as someone suggested early in the thread. I would characterise it as undogmatic.

There are too many people who assert a narrow definition of folk/tradition that suits their own preference, and then spend far too much effort telling everyone else how wrong they are.