>> The most (in)famous example is, of course, [i]The Recruited Collier[/i], cobbled up and industrialised from a Cumbrian farmworker's poem <<

Something similar obviously happened with "The Handweaver and the Factory Maid" (Roy Palmer published a paper on the various versions, and armed with that knowledge you can see the scissor marks and glue in the version popularised by Lloyd). And don't get me started on "The Cutty Wren". None of this is to decry the work of either man, but for those of us interested in what people actually sang in the first place it's sometimes worth doing a bit of digging.