It’s very telling to compare McCarthy's approach to Motherwell with that of Harker. Although he is diplomatic in his references to Fakesong it’s clear that, while it may be a ‘helpful handbook’ (I said the same myself), the scholarship falls down when you get into the detail. Harker has misunderstood the relationship between Motherwell and Crawfurd, who he seems to believe was the go-between who actually collected in the field, whereas in fact Motherwell collected the vast majority of the songs himself, and had formed the view that oral sources were of prime importance some time before meeting Crawfurd. Perhaps the most damning comments (albeit delivered in a velvet-gloved hand) related to Harker’s characteristically disparaging remarks about the singers’ identities having been ‘suppressed’ by Crawfurd: “Crawfurd’s texts remain unrecognised because they were non-existent... Crawfurd had no part in gathering or selecting texts for the Minstrelsey.” So it was Motherwell who concealed his informants’ names, not because he didn’t value their contribution, but because “an editor should respect the anonymity of his sources.”

Where McCarthy praises Motherwell on the grounds that his introduction “exhibits unexpected insights into oral process in ballad composition”, and that he exhibits “a keen understanding of balladry as a living art,” all we get from Fakesong is the usual litany of political comment: “arch reactionary...”; “wielding a truncheon on behalf of the state..”; “violent denunciations of reformers...” “'instinctively' Tory ideas and 'monarchical principles'...”; “naive and mystical notion of cultural history...”; “his attitude to working people remains patronizing..”, and so on and so forth. McCarthy, on the oher hand, praises Motherwell for his ability to cross the class divide and persuade his sources to trust him. It’s refreshing after Fakesong to read content that’s concerned with the subject’s actual work, rather than the author’s own preoccupations.