'Popular' is one of those weasel-words. before Thoms' 1840s coinage, it was the word generally used where we would say 'folk': 'Popular Antiquities' was the name gave his C18 collection of what we would call 'folk customs'. And even after ~~ what is the title, just remind me, of Child's collection: 'The English and Scottish [what?] Ballads'? And it seems to me that some posters are confusing the issue by using the word indiscriminately, and sometimes simultaneously, in both/all of these senses at once.

Until terms are properly defined, and some precise distinctions made, this thread is going to go on infinitely chasing its own tail, it seems to me.

~M~