Folk is a bourgeois fantasy of a working-class culture stripped of individual creativity and seen only in terms of its collectivity and plundered accordingly. In this sense CS's Elgin Marbles analogy holds true - such class condescension is exactly that which justified the evils of colonialism and is evident in Folklore Studies well into the 20th Century. Indeed, much Neo-Paganism is founded on the notion that Folk Custom and Seasonal Ceremony carry symbolic / mystical significances beyond the understanding of the participants, just as Baring-Gould believed the traditional singers couldn't possibly appreciate the significance of what they were singing.

I like the cut of your jib, young fellow-me-lad. It probably does hold true in England at least.