The army is there Jim, because 'folk'   are there.Folk music is not the hothouse flower requiring seminars from professors and aficionados.

It is a tide arising in breast of humankind. The will to perform, the will to create. And ordinary people from all societies have this within them.


The reason you can't pinpoint who was the original Wild Rover is because he was of no interest to the class of people who attend seminars on folk music.

And somewhere his distant inheritor is writing the follow up with a nose flute a triangle and a synthesiser. And none of us know where he is, or who he is. He's part of the invisible army. Don't sneer at him. His distant relations wrote all your favourite ballads.