>Ayr is of course the county town of Ayrshire…

It could just be chance, and it's certainly not enough to build much on, but I can't help noticing how most of the early evidence for Barbara Allan in Scotland points to the south-west. First there is Ramsay's "Sir John Graeme in the west country", which in Scottish terms would mean Ayrshire or thereabouts. Then there is Child C, apparently the earliest Scottish text known to have been recorded from a singer or reciter, collected by Motherwell in Kilbirnie, Ayrshire. And C.K. Sharpe's mention that the peasantry in Annandale sang it, most likely remembering this from his early years in Hoddam Castle, so in the 1780s or 1790s – that's Dumfriesshire, not Ayrshire, but it's still south-west Scotland and a neighbouring county. On the other hand, apparently no early traces in the north-east: it's not in Anna Brown's manuscripts, or in Jamieson, Kinloch, or any of the other north-eastern collectors – with the exception of Buchan, and we now find that his version locates the story in Ayr and introduces Ayrshire family names. (On the other hand, there is plenty of evidence of Barbara Allan in north-east Scottish tradition in the 20th century, and it must have got there somehow…)