Never mind contributors' drinking habits; we're still getting glib assertions here that "the tradition never really existed in the first place".

Now, I can point to a ballad known in 1455 that was still being sung, in recognizable but altered form, in both England and North America during the 20th century, by singers unconnected with any 'Folk Revival'.

To records of shepherds before the birth of Shakespeare singing ballads that would be still be around for F J Child to include in his collection 350 years later.

To ballads sung in the British Isles with analogues in balladry and folktale from Europe and beyond.

To hundreds and hundreds of examples of old songs and variants recorded by notation or mechanical recording.

To the testimony of dozens of singers who learned their songs from the generations before them.

To the account Jim Carroll gave above, about song transmission of which he had first-hand experience.

If "the tradition never existed", are those things:
(a) a complete fabrication, part of a centuries-old conspiracy to delude us all?

(b) isolated phenomena that don't deserve to be drawn together as evidence of a single process?

(c) evidence of a real cultural phenomenon for which 'The Tradition' (capitalized or otherwise) is, however, not a suitable name?

(d) inconvenient facts that prevent the free flight of bees in bonnets?