Can anyone tell me how an Irish reel would be notated? Or a Boda polska from Sweden?

The reason I ask is that many folk tunes need the "feel" of the rhythm. Even if you could notate it accurately, which I doubt, the best music reader in the world wouldn't be able to make it sound right without first knowing the playing style.

All the notation I've ever seen for a reel involves straight eighth and sixteenth notes. Boda polskas are usually written with quarter note triplets over the first two beats of the measure. Playing them the way they are written would be the exact reason so many trad players don't really like classical violinists who learn the tunes from the notes. There's nothing wrong with playing a tune that way, of course, unless you think you're making them sound like Irish or Swedish tunes.

This is not to say that reading isn't important. It is. But there are many things in music that don't show up in the notation. I've always thought the notation for traditional music is like a road map. It is very useful for learning the route, but when you are actually driving you should have your eyes on the road.

This isn't just true of traditional music. I'm deeply familiar with Led Zeppelin's music and I've seen a lot of their songs written out. The notation doesn't even come close to capturing the feel of the music. It doesn't even get the rhythmic nuances.

Music scholarship is great, but it's only tangential to the main event.