"WHat I call purists are those folk who think that nothing modern can be traditional."

But if I'm interested in learning about extremely old folk songs that were around long, long before the modern revival of the 50's/60's, what should I call them?

I understand that the word 'traditional' can be interpretated in different ways, and it's the different ways in which the word gets interpreted that makes things complicated.

But there is this very old stuff that was around a long, long time before the folk revival. So how does someone who is interested in the very old stuff in particular, sift it out from modern songs if there isn't a term that can be used to differentiate the old songs from modern songs?

For my own part I don't care what people call them! I just want to be able to learn about songs from the old folk song tradition, without things getting more muddled or complicated than they need to be!