Even as I sit here on this blustery October afternoon with my new fiddle (that's an actual vintage violin, circa 1920, bought last weekend in Blackpool for £150) scraping Old Time ditties both genuine (The Possums Tail is Bare which I'm learning from Dave Bragger's very splendid YouTube Channel) and bogus (The Porcupine Sways in the October Sycamore which I made up yesterday whilst jamming with Rapunzel on her 5-string) I might reflect on Bob 'Only in it For the Money' Pegg's words in his book Folk (Wildwood House, 1976):

I think we have to face the possibility that folk is an illusion created unconsciously by the people who talk about it, go out looking for it, make collections of it, write books about it, and announce to an audience that they are going to sing or play it. It is rather like a mirage which changes according to the social and cultural standpoint of whoever is looking at it. From a distance it looks distinct, almost tangible. The closer you get the more uncertain its outline becomes, until you merge with it and it disappears entirely.

Keep the faith.

S O'P