"His message is that it is not a song's origins which make it 'folk', but what the folk have done with it. "
Same thing Richard
Roud removes any possibility of the uniqueness of folk song by including 'everything that the folk sang'
Had the tradition continued, 'The Birdie Song' and 'Oobladee, Ooblada' would have had Roud numbers
Sam Larner had a large number of American Moody and Sankey hymns in his repertoire - do they merit Roud numbers?
Anybody who has ever tried to sing what we have always accepted as a folk song knows that they differ greatly from all other kind of song - it is those differences that should be discussed
Roud has neatly sidestepped that by not including song texts and not giving a discography we can use as a guide
Either shoddy scholarship or agenda driving
He has also not included what little we have of traditional singers opinions
Jim Carroll