Conrad, no one is denying that drinking, and sometimes heavy drinking, accompanied folk song. What we are challenging is your assertion that it is an essential element, rather than being merely ncidental.

Of the customs you mention, only wassailing centres around the actual drinking (and not all forms of that - the key elements of the apple wassails are firing the guns and sprinkling the trees). In the Mari Lwyd, the key element is the poetic battle of wits between the visitors and those inside the house.

What you overlook is that when times were hard (as they often were) people weren't able to drink heavily. It didn't stop them singing. Flora Thompson describes in Lark Rise to Candleford how the men had to confine themselves to half-pints: "None of them got drunk; they had not money enough, even with beer, and good beer at that, at two-pence a pint". She goes on to describe how they would nevertheless sing the old songs and ballads until closing time.

There was also a strong temperance movement and a number of singers would have been teetotal.

Other than at the celebrations Will describes, food would not have played much of a part either. English pubs only began to serve food in the last 20 or 30 years (and edible food more recently than that). Before then, all you could find were pickled onions and pickled eggs, packets of crisps, and maybe a few unappealing sandwiches. It's unlikely that at the time Thompson writes about (the 1880s) the village pub would have served any sort of food - why should it, when its customers' homes were all within walking distance?

Even today, other than on special occasions, it would be unusual to find food at an English folk club, and would be considered discourteous to performers and audience to bring food into the club room. At sessions, sometimes the landlord will produce sandwiches for the performers, but this is not usual. The only time food is commonly consumed is during all-day sessions when people naturally pause to eat at mealtimes.

Pubs in the past were also men-only. Do you bar women from your folk gatherings on grounds of "authenticity"? (Sorry, ladies, for putting the idea in his head, but if it means not having to endure Conrad's company I doubt you'll mind too much.)

What you describe as "freeing the muse" most of us would call "getting drunk". However, having heard how your muse behaves when it's freed I suspect most of us would prefer you to keep it well locked up.