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I have already concurred with you on several threads that ultimately no-one can prove beyond doubt that any ephemeral piece of work like this can be pinned down toan original, BUT that does not meanthat we can't lookat all the versions and come up with the most likely origin, especially, but not exclusively, where its earliest extant manifestation is a printed sheet with somebody's name attached.

Now, it might be helpful for you to understand my stance and why I won't budge an inch from it, if I explain briefly how I came by this stance.

I have an obsessive analytical mind and my love for traditional songled me to want to look in great detail at the possible origins and evolution of the songs and ballads I was interested in. Over the last 40 -odd years I have chosen a ballad and taken every available version of it, printed and oral, and compared line by line until patterns of evolution have emerged. this has included all of the extant stall copy variants. (Yes I know it's sad but it keeps me off the streets and out of the pub) I have done this, I would estimate for more than half of the previously mentioned English corpus. I have actually got copies of broadsides for about 90% of them. In most cases the earliest stall copy is its earliest manifestation by at least 70 years, i.e., 70 years before the earliest oral version was collected.
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