"I don't accept either LOHAG & YNWA to be Traditional Songs because the idiom's completely wrong - musicologically they are something else altogether." ······

So then, Suibhne, you tend more to Bert Lloyd's "folk in function but not in form" distinction, rather than to Jim's assertion that "it is not a matter of how it sounds"?

Have I understood you correctly? If so, why do you come down on that side of the question rather than the other?

I would reiterate that I am, and have always been since my interview with Bert back in 1974, only asking, or perhaps suggesting a possibility, rather than making any actual claim regarding the 'folk' status of YNWA.

~Michael~