On the other thread I pointed out another song earlier than any known version of "Barbara Allen" that told the same story, but without the last 'rose bush and briar' verse. Later versions rarely change the meaning of earlier ones. They are not written by historians who know more about the subject than the author. No matter how variant the text may be of "The Demon Lover/ The House Carpenter", no matter who performs some wversion well, Laurence Price's ballad 'A Warning to married women" of Feb. 1657 is the original of the Child ballad, and accoring to that the woman was a Mrs. Jane Renalls of Plymouth, and the seaman was a James Harris, and the point of departure was Plymouth. There are many several other names for the principals that turn up in later traditional versions, these prove nothing about the original ballad. The border widow's lament in DT is not a version of the ballad. Some have taken this to be the original version of Price's ballad. It is a song based on Prices's ballad, but actually on the massacre of Glencoe in Feb. 1692. Robert Burns stated that Dr. Blacklock told him that. I have an unpublished early copy of the song from a Scots MS of c 1715 (much earlier than any version yet published) that proves this to be correct. So much for another fanciful theory.