"They can be about ploughboys and milkmaids, or about lords and ladies, or about magicians and witches"
I forgot to mention that Steve has claimed that the Tales, music, lore, dance etc - also originated from those higher up the social ladder.
If all this nonsense is true, there would have been no folk traditions before Queen Victoria came to the throne because that's when literacy kicked in in rural areas
Up to then, only one third of the population of England were literate, and that was mainly among the Urban population - the rural labouring classes were virtually illiterate
There must have been long queues outside the doors of the literate, of people waiting to be taught the contents of broadsides
" Don't the 'folks' preferences count when discussing their songs? "
Would you have regarded dog fighting or bear baiting or public hanging and drawing and quartering in the same light, I wonder - tradition doesn't mean good
Jim Carroll