That's a matter of personal faith, Phil. It's like believing in God. If it's real to you subjectively that's fine. Objectively, however, like God, it's demonstrably a load of phoney tosh the religiosity of which makes a lot of claims with respect of its provenance & authenticity that have no place in shared reality. As I've always said, at least a model railway enthusiast would know a real train should ever they encounter one. Your common-or-garden folk enthusiast is too wrapped up in the illusion of it all to tell the difference.

Does this matter? I think it does because somewhere along the way the very important differentiation between Traditional & Revival seems to have been lost. In persisting on the authenticity of its recreations the Revival serves to obfuscate the nature of genuine folklore - be it the long-dead traditional prototypes it uses for its grotesque modern charades, or else in overlooking the Real Thing because it doesn't fit into the faux-aestheticm that appeals to the mindset of your average Folk Enthusiast. Thus the human dimension is lost - as in the present instance when otherwise reasonable people have somehow managed to convince themselves that dancing with backed-up faces in the public spaces of 21st Century UK is somehow a worthy, noble, tradition, historic and (above all) Not Racist thing to do.

I think now my excommunication from the folk world is complete. This thread and its related bluster has, I fear, been the final straw!

Offski - Sedayne!