Many of the Child ballads are not traditional at all - they could really be regarded as part of the revival. Child took them from written sources: many have never been collected from traditional singers, and indeed for many there is no reliable indication of an authentic tune. They remained in written form only, virtually as dead as Egyptian hieroglyphic tablets, until resuscitated from the 50s onwards by the likes of MacColl, Lloyd, Nic Jones, Carthy, etc often with tunes newly written or borrowed from other ballads.

Of course many others in the Child collection did survive down the years to be collected "in the wild" by Sharp, Grieg, Duncan, Kidson, Broadwood etc. These undoubtedly are traditional, but you can't say that the whole of Child is. It has to be assessed on a song by song basis.