> some are clearly related, others are not so much.

Insofar as each of them involves a conversation at a well, where the man (whoever he is) tells the woman (whoever she is) about her personal life, they all clearly derive from the same original story, so I would count them as cousins. However they are so different that any attempt to identify their exact relationships would involve a lot of missing links.

BTW apropos Ruth Archer 05 Jan 09 - 04:55 AM saying "Completely OT": not at all. Jacob's Well (which is one of my favourites of the "Sheffield" carols) concerns the very same encounter, albeit with neither the personal revelations not the penances, so an entirely independent telling of the same biblical story.