OK. I found some of my notes I posted in 1994. That was when I was still gating through to internet from a private BBS. Bad memory - toad, not cat. Makes even more sense.

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  Msg#: 2                                            Date: 25 Oct 94  08:53:19
  From: Abby Sale
    To: Uucp, 1:363/198.1
  Subj: "Willie's Lady"
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To: folktalk@leo.vsla.edu sg

 sg> One song, of which I am curious, was one  about a king or prince named
 sg> William, whose wife could not deliver her child.  Turns out his mother

We don't know his station.  Just that he was a son-of-a-witch.

 sg> to find out what the curse was and to undo it.  Does anyone know  this
 sg> song and its title?  I would love to try and find it!  Carthy and

I've e-mailed both Fisher's version (slightly corrected) which I already
had because I really needed to learn it; and also Carthy's Anglicazation
of it from DigTrad.  (Hope you didn't get TOO many copies.)

Coupla comments on this outstanding ballad.  Child reports it's sole
source in English anywhere, ever, was Mrs. Brown of Falkland in 1783.
Unfortunately, the tune recorded was defective and unsingable.  Although
given in Bronson, even Bronson comments that this tune is a) impossible
as recorded and b) so monotonous as to be wholly unsingable.

So nobody sang it from 1783 until Ray Fisher married it to the modern
Breton pipe tune, as already posted: "Son ar Chiste," (Song of Cider)
Carthy's liner notes give full credit & term the marriage a brilliant
one.  It certainly was.

Nevertheless, there's a partial version given in Greig's _Last Leaves_,
# III, "Simon's Lady."  He got it from his principal informant, Bell
Robertson (383 songs.) She had learned it orally from her mother who got
it from _her_ mother.  If it entered her family only then, it would
still pre-date any publication of Mrs. Brown's version.  Robertson told
Greig she had never heard it sung by anyone but her mother.  Sadly, she
did not, herself sing & gave Greig no tune.

This is fragmentary & it's basically the same as Child (A) but the
differences might shed some light:

        We still don't know if the "Billy blin'" is a household brownie
        (as I would believe) or an elderly farm retainer with the "gift."
        There's really no evidence for the latter, just, I gather, a
        suggestion made to Ray when she asked around.  But "Billy
        blin'" gives his advice while sitting in the "binkie en'", the
        foot of the bed.

        "Ye mak an image o the clay,   A face o wax to it ye'll gie."
        (rather than an effigy of wax with eyes of glass)

        The several charms used are still of the "binding" sort
        (to keep the womb bound) but include bands on her arms, a lock
        on the bed-stock.

        Willie kills the "ted" (ie, toad) that was beneath the lady's
        bed. Greig notes this not only rhymes better than "kid" but also
        makes more sense as the witch's familiar to keep beneath a bed.
        The lady might have noticed a kid running around under her bed
        even in those casual days.