My hash would be settled by the simple expedient of traditionalists stating the work of known authors can be folk.

Indeed, and as stated in the MCMLIV Shibboleth: variation which springs from the creative impulse of the individual AND can likewise be applied to music which has originated with an individual composer - however, this is fucked up by the absurd caveat and has subsequently been absorbed into the unwritten living tradition of a community. Unwritten living tradition? WTF? Ah, the sweet romance of it all! Hardly the wonder the International Folk Music Council changed their name! I once saw a bunch of kids marching along in a Northumbrian Colliery Village, circa 1980, singing Pink Floyd's Another Brick in the Wall in perfect unison, note & word perfect, until they came to the last line which became all in all I'm just another prick without balls. Unwritten Living Tradition, or rather Unwitting Living Tradition as such things invariably are in the more mundane areas of The Living Folkloric Traditions of Our Green and Pleasant Land - and it fits the MCMLIV Shibboleth like a proverbial old shoe.

Talking of old shoe and folklore, in a recent episode of The Apprentice, one of the hopefuls used the colourful expression he couldn't pour shit from a shoe if the instructions were printed on the heel; I've since heard this four times in the field, as it were, and the two occasions I asked after provenance, both sources claimed never to have watched The Apprentice. Methinks I'll be keeping my ears to the ground on this one!

Meanwhile, I have further thoughts on this to impart anon which my present circumstance prohibits, hence the Guest name, which is, of course, an anagram of, yours truly:

Sinister Supporter