> It's just unlikely that Niles would be the only one to collect a similar version.

I agree.

It's also unlikely that only *one* version of a ballad published by Child would be collected in America - particularly if it's also very rare in Britain. If a song was sufficiently well known to be in "tradition," it should have been collected more than once.

Of course, the unlikely does sometimes occur, though when it does we'd like to see it coming from a someone who's known to be reputable otherwise.

When the lone version comes from Niles, one begins to feel even more uncomfortable, especially since we can be pretty sure it's been seriously "edited" no matter what it might have been based on.