Can I suggest that we stop this like of bickering and get on

I put up the Brian's review and the article on The Stewarts to make the point that despite Harker's "fake" claim, singers and storytellers were still around as part o an oral tradition
In the end, it doesn't matter what Harker wrote - he produced no evidence that the tradition had been "faked" and until someone does, they can quote him till the cows come home but the position remains as we have always believed it to be, songs and stories embraced, constantly re-adapted and probably made by 'ordinary' people, as both entertainment and as expressions of their lives and experiences.
That is what needs discussing in my opinion - it really is time that people stopped hiding behind 'We don't know what folk song is any more' and get down to saying what they believe it has become, and why
Jim Carroll