*smile*...as resident curmudgeon and reactionary iconoclast..(what?..what'd he say?)...I realize that because Burns was SO famous and got both his songs and the ones he collected written down and sort of 'set' in memories, that it is a bit different than other songs of the same era. Still, the styles, subject matter, etc. of Burns associated stuff blend in easily with folk/traditional music...it is easy enough now to shrug and say that passage of time along with acceptance by certain groups allows him to be as trad and anyone..

(we have argumentsdiscussions here all the time about whether Bob Dylan should be called folk/trad..or Woody Guthrie!!.)

I simply make a list of 15-25 chacteristics that songs which ARE folk/trad seem to share, and ask if another song fits some, most or all...and Burns fares pretty well...