Child pointed to the overlap between his numbers 20 and 21 more than a century ago. The likelihood is that 'Cruel Mother' has in some cases (chiefly Scottish ones) acquired material from forms of 'Maid and the Palmer', which appears to be the older ballad.

I do hope that people won't feel the need to post the words of any more revival arrangements of 'Well Below the Valley'. A lot of people perform such things and a fair few have recorded them; but all derive from John Reilly's unique traditional version, though in many cases they have been learned from other revival performers rather than from the recording of Reilly himself. That isn't to say that there is necessarily anything wrong with such things: just that, by definition, they cannot tell us anything about the history or meaning of the song, just a little about the personal sensibilities of the individuals concerned.