One difference is that no one hearing a whaling ballad sung in public will go away thinking that whales are filthy beasts deserving of whatever punishment they get.

The song is cruel enough to be "entertaining" without ethnic references, which is the case with the Steeleye version. Singing the song in 2007 without those references is not telling lies about the past - it's "continuing the folk tradition." Dropping the ballad from one's repertoire is also continuing the folk tradition of forgetting songs that whose day is done. If you must sing it, what's wrong with "a mad scientist's daughter"?

There's not much excuse for performing "Little Sir Hugh" and none at all for presenting it as "entertainment" in its ancient form. (Even singing it as a "history lesson" seems perverse. As we know, its story is still believed plausible by millions.)