"For instance many of the Child ballads show no or little evidence of ever having been in oral tradition."
Utter nonsense
THe most important repository of ballads in Britain and Ireland was the non-literate Travelling people
Burns gathered ballads, Maidment gathered ballads Buchan Gathered ballads
The Buchan controversy cebrted around what he did with the ballads he collected, now whether he wrote them
Now you're being spiteful stupid
This now becomes a vicious attempt to ednigrate the oral tradition
Next to you "all folk tales, music and dance educated sources.
And you accuse me of having an agenda

Please don't tell me I'm confused after you,ve just claimed this outrageous rubbish
Your agenda-driven shoddy scholarship becomes tiresome
Jim Carroll