From "A History of Folksong," copyright 2105:

"The contribution of the Mudcat Critics of ca2008 was to show that many of the best and most popular British and American folksongs of the latter 20th Century were extensively revised by the artists who recorded them, even though the songs were presented as authentic ancient documents. The changes were primarily cosmetic, but like the more drastic alterations made by Percy, Baring-Gould, Sharp, and others, they misled students into thinking that the "folk" of earlier centuries had tastes in song that were nearly indistinguishable from their own. Even more regrettable is that certain scholars too were not above silently "fixing up" songs and passing them off as unaltered historical artifacts. Early writers on the subject like Sir Walter Scott, of course, had done the same thing, but it was dismaying to see that even after 150 years, folksong commentators had not yet given up his bad - and highly misleading - habits."