"open vitriol of Jim Carroll," =
P'OB
"And thus we find the Sycophantic Mollusc leaving his wretchedly non-constructive divisive slime-trail where e'er he slithers"
PO'B
"folkies are a bunch of complete C-words after all"   
Glueman
Facts
Ballads like Barbara Allen, (described by Pepys in the middle of the 17th century as "that old Scotch song") have been passed from singer to singer throughout the English speaking world for around four centuries.
Ancient ballads like The Blind Beggar (early 17th century) have been discovered in the repertoires of non-lterate Traveller singers whittled down from unsingable epics to 6-7-8 beautifully concise versions.
The Unfortunate Rake is not only to be found in hundreds of versions, but has divided into two distinct types, 'The Bad Girl's Lament' and 'The Unfortunate Rake'.
Fifty plus of Child's 'English and Scottish Popular Ballads' have been recorded from field singers, (Travellers, small farmers, land labourers, - rural and urban workers in general) in hundreds of distinct versions in the Irish Republic over the last 40 years.
Irish Traveller (Wexford) singers from the same family have been found to have at least half-a-dozen DISTINCTLY DIFFERENT versions of The Outlandish Knight, (probably the most popular ballad in that community).
Ballads such as Johnny Scott, The Maid and the Palmer, Sweet William and Fair Margaret, The Demon Lover, Prince Robert...... many more long disappeared from the British repertoire have been discovered in Ireland.
Songs transmitted via the oral tradition invariably take on the characteristics of the area where they move to, occupationally, socially and geographically. The names of the characters withing the songs change constantly and the as do the locations.
Relatively new ANONYMOUS songs (within the lifetimes of the singers, and sometimes within as little as five years of the event described in the song) have been recorded from both Travellers and rural Irish singers.
We have oral descriptions of singers and storytellers (Traveller and settled) passing on their songs and stories and some time later hearing them in multi-versions.
The FACT that there exists a massive repertoire of songs for whom the composers, and even the geographical origins is unknown is totally unprecedented, certainly in the western world.
Explain any of these and you might have covered the foothills of the mountain that is the oral folk tradition.
Jim Carroll