IanC, you say you never denigrated Child? I quote from your opening salvo:

Hardly did anything for folk song, did he? Never collected a single song, Categorised ballads arbritrarily and missed out quite a few of the most important ones.

Given that this was the man's life's work, I think that's a denigration.

You also didn't say anything about the way he was perceived in your opening post, although later you contend that this is your primary interest. This, I think, is what caused the confusion among many of us...sounded like you were just taking potshots.

Another thing I noticed more recently is that you rely on Dave harker for a statistical accounting of Child's sources, deciding that seven authors provide 70 percent of his versions. Dave Harker's statistics are coming under fire now by Chris Bearman, Mike Yates and others. I met Chris recently and talked about some of this, and both he and Mike have published their evidence, Mike on the Musical Traditions Letters page (www.mustrad.org.uk). Seems in his discussion of Sharp, Harker's statistics are consistently off-base in favor of his ideological position--imagine that! No one has tested the statistics in other chapters so far as I know. So I'm afraid you'll have to count up Child's sources yourself and do the math to get accurate stats, rather than relying on Harker. Your general point, that a few authors provided a lot of material to Child, is of course valid.