Thank you, Jack and Dave, for replying to Steve for me before I'd seen the comments.

I must add, though, that I did a lot of work on the article to bring new research to the song in reply to the comments above that there's nothing new in it. The evidence is partly in the green links in the article. If anyone else has traced the birth and death records of the family to test the veracity of the claims that the song is about a real family, and thereby critiqued A. L. Lloyd's oft-repeated claims about the family circumstances, or given historical detail to show that the basis for the claim to the song being medieval has no basis whatever, then I'm certainly not aware of it.

As I say in the article, the beautiful tune Martin Carthy uses is my tune, and I've never heard anyone do it quite like him, so I suspect the elongated refrains are his own invention. I'd like to know myself. If anyone has more information, I'd like to know.