Thanks Malcolm. Lets start with "Ballads" shall we?

Though it wasn't only Child, he was the main instigator of the C19th movement to define what a ballad is, basically in the terms "A ballad is what I say it is". Hardly surprising that he didn't miss out too many "ballads" ... he was deciding which were and which were not. He even dropped certain "short romances which formerly stood in the first book ... in order to give the collection a homogeneous character".

I'd prefer to use a more general and, should I say, proper definition of the word ballad than Child. Can we use the following dictionary definition of a ballad?

bal·lad (bld) n.

A narrative poem, often of folk origin and intended to be sung, consisting of simple stanzas and usually having a refrain. The music for such a poem. A popular song especially of a romantic or sentimental nature.
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[Middle English balade, poem or song in stanza form, from Old French ballade, from Old Provençal balada, song sung while dancing, from balar, to dance, from Late Latin ballre, to dance.]
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I'll try and argue some other points later but can we really say with any credibility that practitioners of English-language folksong are indebted to him? The songs were there already. All of them were in collections so he didn't even make them available. I'd maintain that people who sing folk songs would be singing them just as much and just as well if Child had never existed.

:-)
Ian