My apologies for unintentionally misquoting you there Ruth.

There has been some highly enlightening discussion on this board regards the appropriation of English traditions by right-wing Nationalists.

Personally I see a threat to English traditional arts, arising from contamination by association to such groups, whose political agenda in 'blacking up' (amongst other things), may be quite utterly other than the innocent guising practice from which it origionally arose.

The question for me here, is about context. Our modern England is not the same place that it once was, and the symbolic language of our modern England is also not what it once was.

Holding to *some* traditional practices, may possibly muddy the tradition in a contemporary context, where such practices may be open to abuse of the most ugly kind.

Should folk traditions adapt to current contexts, in order to actually preserve their *integrity*?

This is an exceedingly interesting thread which addresses some very pertinant and current issues. I hope it will remain so.