" ... sadly anonymous if only because the collectors had a particular point to prove regarding the communal nature of The Tradition."

No, no, no!! "Sadly anonymous" because the names of the authors weren't written down! You are surely not suggesting that we should 'demonise' the collectors because of this? In most cases the anonymous nature of the songs was outside of the collectors' control.

Or are you suggesting that Baring Gould, C. Sharp. RVW, P. Grainger et. al. were able (via some mystic process) to divine the authors of the songs but neglected to pass this information on? Are their 'secret notebooks', containing these data, stashed in some archive somewhere just waiting to be stumbled on?

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"are you suggesting that Baring Gould, C. Sharp. RVW, P. Grainger et. al. were able (via some mystic process) to divine the authors of the songs but neglected to pass this information on?"

Are you suggesting the songs are remarkable because they couldn't find them?

Good points, GUEST (S) - & welcome too; but by posting them as GUEST you run the risk of deletion. Could you post them again using a name? I've put them in this post just in case.

In a discussion recently it was revealed that Baring-Gould was of the opinion that the Traditional Singers were too ignorant to fully appreciate the symbolism of the songs they sang. This speaks volumes for the regard in which our heroes were held, and such, indeed, is the way of the folklorist; driven to falsify the facts to fit their pet theories. In many cases, it is their legacy we're dealing with here - as has already been discussed A.L.Lloyd wasn't above doing this himself.

Conspiracy? Perish the thought! After all, this is only the legacy of thousands years of feudal suppression we're dealing with here.