This is what I wrote about the ballad for Musical Traditions:

Young Alvin sung by Packie Manus Byrne, London, 1974. Roud 2988.

According to both R S Thomson and Frank Purslow (personal correspondence) versions of Young Alvin appeared in late 18th-century chapbooks, although I have not, so far, come across one. Packie learnt the ballad in the early 1930s at Ballysadare horse fair from Kathleen Collins, a tinker whose family travelled around Fermanagh and Tyrone. He could not recall having heard it sung elsewhere - and nor has Roud. Presumably the line 'But ere he came to earl's court' (verse 4) refers to that part of west London that is now called 'Earls Court'.