"I enjoyed reading it."
I would like to add my thanks to Brian's posts - they have helped to finally put to bed everything I found offensive about 'Fakesong' when I first read it - it took me several goes when I first tried it
I had to put it aside for considerably lengths of time on several occasions because of the anger and frustration it evoked.
It reminds me of a number of occasions we have been approached by University or College students seeking advice on folk song
Most were genuinely interested in the subject, but some obviously wished to impress their examiners and chose to do so by trying to say something 'different'
Harker seems to have done this by choosing to largely ignore the advice he was given and by distorting or exaggerating the known facts to an often outrageous degree.
Brian's step-by-step placing his claims beside what actually happened puts this approach in a nutshell

At the time, Fakesong was more or less rejected by the committed folk enthusiasts - unfortunately, now that the survival of Folk Song as a seriously regarded art form depends on clarity and a clear understanding of the uniqueness and social importance of the genre, a few seem to clung on to Harker's distortions and, in doing so, have added to the "nobody knows what folk song is any more" fog that hangs over the folk scene like an old London Pea-souper.
I'm afraid I would put Steve Roud's otherwise admirable, 'Folk Song in England' and his (and other's) redefining of the term 'folk' to include "everything the folk sang", very much a part of that 'foggy' problem.

As the founders of the 'Irish Tradition Music Archive' appear to have decided when they were setting up their invaluable organisation, the best way to guarantee a future for your music was to make sure that you yourselves understood it in ll its significance and uniqueness
That is why they have helped create a situation where Irish traditional music has been more-or-less guaranteed an at least two generation future

I would like to make clear that I am referring only to what appears to be happening in England; the magnificent 'Kist o' Riches' site seems to indicate that Scotland doesn't have the same miasma hanging over its traditional music
The mammoth Carpenter Collection can only help add to that clarity (as did the magnificent 8 volume Greig/Duncan collection before it) though it would be interesting to imagine what kind of 'jobbie' Harker would have deposited on them had he got his hands on them !
Jim Carroll