Richie,
29 April 8.08 you have Robinson for Robertson.

Jon,
Interesting version easily standardised. Shall you do it or one of us, just for clarity?

Brian,
I did say 'most of' and, for me at least, in nearly a century since the ballad was published there is plenty of time for oral tradition or literary interference (needs looking at closely) or both to have intervened. The kid/toad change could easily have been someone in the chain trying to make it look more plausible. Who knows?

As to Bell's fragmentary version. I don't really see how it being a fragment tells us anything. I'm aware that Child often was suspicious of 'complete' ballads as being edited/collated, but for me at least just because something is a fragment doesn't make it any more genuine.

Regarding Bell's own statements, we have plenty of examples when source singers have been mistaken or made false statements. There are all sorts of possibilities and mine is just an opinion.

If you want to go through the similarities and difference piece by piece I need to know whether you're using Child or Lyle. The stanza numbering is different.

Generally speaking, having looked at Bell's longer recitations, some of them are very close to Peter Buchan's concoctions. But there are all sorts of ways they could be derived from Buchan.