Actually Brian, there is an English tradition of werefoxes, just as there is a Greek (and Romany) tradition of werecats. Shape shifters are not that unusual in folklore.
What tickles me enormously about all this is that I remember going to one club in the sixties where the elders were ranged at the back sucking their dentures over what was traditional(!), revering the works of Messrs Miller and Lloyd, and setting themselves up in the process as the fons et origo of all things folk in the immediate vicinity. There have been numerous examples of bad scholars making a half-decent living out of folk music, largely on account of the rest of us simply not having the time, wit or academic rigour to put them in their places (or maybe we just can't be arsed). Some are charlatans, some thought they were something they weren't ( and in some cases still do), and I suspect many were simply posessed of more enthusiasm than skill.

Kipling had it about right in "When 'Omer Smote 'is Bloomin' Lyre" -"We knew 'e stole, 'e knew we knew...but kept it quiet, same as you".

Academically, it is important - probably vital. Perhaps Mudcat is akin to peer review, so nobody can complain if it gets a bit harsh; that's how it works provided we can retain some common politeness. For the rest, Domeama for one is too good a song to let slip, and perhaps what is really getting up our noses is that every last one of us has been taken in to some extent at some time.