Does anyone like folk purely for the noise it makes? I know I don't; it's always more than that, by way seance, communion, reverence, same as I get when faced with anything hoary I suppose.

Many people attracted by the noise it made chose to take their interest further into all kinds of different realms, be they musicological, historical, mystical, or simply the crap dress sense. I confess to a certain sense of awe in the presence of a 600 year old Devil ballad, but 'seance and reverence'? No thanks.

There is a grain of truth in what you say about 'reaction to the horrors of modern life': I remember finding Bob Copper's memoir of life in rural Sussex on A Song for Every Season heartwarming precisely for its contrast with the turmoil of my own late teenage years. It's just too bad Bob isn't here now so that you could tell him that his reminscences were nothing more than some kind of mythic comfort blanket.