Child does indeed claim that Edward has Scandinavian roots - however around the turn of the century it was very fashionable to attribute Scandinavian roots to just about every ballad. This has to do with the myth that the "big" folk ballads dated back to some pure all-Germanic proto society before the separation of high and low art. Currently, it seems that folk ballads, even the magical and archaic seeming ones, don't necessary predate early street ballads and broadsides but more or less evolved in parallel with them, i.e. from about the 16th century.