Mrrzy, Malcolm Douglas has already written in a Mudcat thread about The Suffolk Miracle of the Cornish folk tale cited by Child as the example of the fuller story of the song. In the present state of the Mudcat I can't easily locate this thread, but it is out there somewhere.

Child does say of The Suffolk Miracle that: "This piece could not be admitted here on its own merits....I have printed this ballad because in a blurred, enfeebled, and disfigured shape, it is the representative in England of one of the most remarkable tales and one of the most impressive and beautiful ballads of the European continent."

Child then summarises the Cornish folk tale before citing other specimens from all over Europe of the tale of the Spectre Bridegroom. His rescension of the tale is worth giving here:

"A lover, who has long been unheard of, but whose death has not been ascertained, roused from his last sleep by the grief of his mistress (which in some cases drives her to seek or accept the aid of a spell), comes to her by night on horseback and induces her to mount behind him. As they ride, he says several times to her, The moon shines bright, the dead ride swift, art not afraid? Believing him to be living, the maid protests that she feels no fear, but at last becomes alarmed. He takes her to his burial-place, and tries to drag her into his grave; she escapes, and takes refuge in a dead-house (or house where a dead man is lying). The lover pursues, and calls upon the dead man within the house to give her up, which in most cases, for fellowship he prepares to do. At the critical moment a cock crows, and the maid is saved."

In an intriguing footnote Child adds ..."I have a copy learned in the north of Ireland in 1850 (and very much changed as to form), in which the scene is laid "between Armagh and County Clare.""

This otherwise unidentified copy sounds suspiciously like a variant of a song identified elsewhere by Malcolm Douglas and Martin Ryan as The Little Penknife sung by John Corry of Tyrone.