'Suffolk Miracle'.
Up to twenty years ago this was one of the most popular ballads to be found among traditional singers in this part of the West of Ireland; long after it had disappeared elsewhere.
The supernatural element in ballads has always been a 'movable feast'; my particular favourite being the version of 'The Grey Cock' 'known as 'I'm A Rover', where the night visiting lover becomes a ploughboy, whose parting shot is:
"Remember lass, I'm a plooman laddie,
And the fairmer I must obey".
The most authoritative (and readable) work on the supernatural ballads by far is still, 'Folklore in The English and Scottish Ballads' by Lowry C Wimberly (Fredrick Ungar Pub. Co. N.Y. 1928.).
It was re-published in the 1960s in paperback by Dover Books.
Jim Carroll