Hi,

I'm not sure about significance of the inheritance it seems that there's more to it than we can know from the text. If we assume that the broadside was written from a translation of Boccaccio then there's nothing really to investigate, the daughter got a portion and wanted the factor to receive the same.

After looking at the ballad for a month I'm convinced Steve's articles and conclusions are valid. In that month we've discovered a new and early English version, compared the texts of over 70 versions, and uncovered new details.

I want to that Steve Gardham for his help and everyone who has contributed to this thread.

The reason this ballad was not considered by Child is: he never knew about the ballad and I'm sure the reworked broadside Constant Farmer's Son was nothing he was interested in. We do know that MacMath wrote to Belden about Constant Farmer's Son and the Braes o' Yarrow (see footnote 50).

As the ballad stands now it's likely based on a broadside, even though it's a missing broadside, that in turn is based on Boccaccio's work. Whether this ballad would have warranted inclusion into Child's collected of ballads if he had the 80 extant versions, we'll never know.

It's still a powerful story,

Richie