Hi John,
Which is why I said earlier that once a scholar/antiquarian/folklorist/collector has been outed then all of their work must come under suspicion, and it can only then be verified and declared suitable for use by scholars as from tradition by extensive study of the alleged sources where they exist.

I think John Meredith's suggestions are totally unwarranted for reasons we have given above; largely Bert produced some damned good songs.

For instance not even Peter Buchan's most extreme apologists deny that he 'eked out' his ballads. The problem is he left no field notes and precious few sources so the only way we can detect the extent of his interference is to study each ballad and his versions collectively intensely. Actually he wrote some really good ballads, though some of his extensions are atrocious.

In fact Bert comes from a long tradition that arguably had more influence on folk song than the oral tradition itself.

MacColl I think is one useful exception to this in that whatever he did earlier in rewriting Child Ballads etc., he did a damned good scholarly job with the 'Travellers' Songs' book.