"I guess I'm glad it's death was & is feared. That's what gets the collectors out recording them..."

I love that, burke. And I think it's as true today as it was a hundred years ago and more. Maybe it's important for us to fear that we're going to lose it if we're going to to value it properely and keep it.

Here is a link to a story Chesterton wrote called The Shop of Ghosts which is oddly relevant, though it's not about folk music as such. Here's the end of it:

"It hath ever been understood," said a burly man, who carried his head humorously and obstinately a little on one side (I think he was Ben Jonson) "It hath ever been understood, consule Jacobo, under our King James and her late Majesty, that such good and hearty customs were fallen sick, and like to pass from the world. This grey beard most surely was no lustier when I knew him than now."
And I also thought I heard a green-clad man, like Robin Hood, say in some mixed Norman French, "But I saw the man dying."
"I have felt like this a long time," said Father Christmas, in his feeble way again.
Mr. Charles Dickens suddenly leant across to him.
"Since when?" he asked. "Since you were born?"
"Yes," said the old man, and sank shaking into a chair. "I have been always dying."
Mr. Dickens took off his hat with a flourish like a man calling a mob to rise.
"I understand it now," he cried, "you will never die."