Hi,

To be fair (although I did laugh at the concoction he gave to Child- see last post), I'll include Baring-Gould's notes from Songs of the West, No. 48 (1905 edition?) that deal with this subject, which I just found at Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/SongsOfTheWest ). This play may be some form of mummers play since according to Baring Gould it's performed around Christmas. I do know that the ballad text (stanzas 1-4 and 15) and the reference to the play were sent to Baring-Gould and this single reference apparently supplied the info about the play.

48. The Lovers' Tasks. This very curious song belongs, as I was told, in Cornwall, to a sort of play that was wont to be performed in farmhouses at Christmas. One performer, a male, left the room, and entered again singing the first part. A girl, seated on a chair, responded with the second part. The story was this. She had been engaged to a young man who died. His ghost returned to claim her. She demurred to this, and he said that he would waive his claim if she could perform a series of tasks he set her. To this she responded that he must, in the first place, accomplish a set of impossible tasks she would set him. Thus was he baffled.

"In all stories of this kind," says Professor Child, "the person upon whom a task is imposed stands acquitted if another of no less difficulty is devised which must be performed first."

* * * *

I must admit, I'm baffled too. The rest of his notes go on tangents to include other, different songs- which I'd rather not go over at this time :)

Richie