The same is happening here as happened in other long threads; we are going off at all sorts of tangents which could do with perhaps separate threads of their own. Fascinating stuff and some of it way beyond my knowledge.

At the risk of being accused of being patronising, some astute contributions from Jim. I just can't fully agree with....>>>> 'I really think it to be more than a little begrudging to accuse many of the early collectors of "fakery" and dishonesty - they were song collectors gathering songs they thought worth singing, not social historians.'

Even as far back as Percy they knew what they were doing and even tried to cover it up. They were all being dishonest (or extremely naïve) to some point. The extreme was reached with Peter Buchan. You only have to read his frontis statement and introduction to realise that Child Ether wasn't a one-off! And they certainly were not just gathering songs to sing. Perhaps you need to clarify who you mean by the early collectors.