here we go again.

C# bowdlerised a lot of what he collected. I am not altogether knowledgable on how he funded his collecting (he started as a teacher in his holidays) - probably subscriptions to his English Folk Song Society but I rather suspect he was a businessman and addressed a market. Smut was not saleable for many reasons. I have seen comments from him to the effect that the tune was not very fitting but I found a more "fitting" tune so put the two together. He may have had good folkloric reasons too, but..... Sabine Baring-Gould wrote in his book, re "Waley Waley" "this was such a pretty song with only two verses I felt it would benefit from a couple more verses". Having said that he actually archived his songs - rude words and subjects. He published less contentious lyrics - &/or Bowdlerised versions.

An aquaintance found some old barn dance records (78's I assume) and bearing the name Cecil Sharp he grabbed them. They turned out - according to him very danceable. No surprise to dancers. Human pursuits have not evolved much on 100 years.

The problem with having a sharp eye for bullshit is that bullshit in the eye comes very sharp. Unless we lived and endured in the cultral environment of which we speak we cannot imagine the strictions and mores that straight-jacketed that society.

by analogy
When on my work computer and any one of server/ 16 mile link to it or just plain internet access are down it is very difficult to do a great deal - and I am constantly criticised for having essential copies of documents stored locally. Colleagues can use the phone, I have to refer to vast amounts of data. You have to suffer the problems to appreciate the import. So take yerself back 100 years and then tell us what it was like. And tell me how you did it - I reckon there is a lucrative market for time travel.