Hi Karen,

I am in my regular life a folklore professor, and a full-time professional writer, among other things. I commend you on taking the time to write about the ballad, and Nic's version of it. I like your post, but think you could develop it much more. If I were to offer constructive criticism for turning it from a blog posting into an article it would be on a few points

(1) you don't clearly articulate what it is you intend to demonstrate in the article--it has no obvious thesis or direction for a good while. You start by describing the ballad in general and then Child's versions, etc., before settling on Nic Jones's version to write about formally. Readers (especially people already familiar with the ballad, who after all are the ones most likely to read it) will want to know where you're going with this before so many paragraphs go by.

(2) you seem to be mostly concerned with proving that Nic's version is the best of all possible versions. But you don't show that it is so, you merely assert or suggest. For example, you say that Lord Barnard's regret over killing his wife and his friend is "extraneous." Why? Just because Nic Jones chose to leave those verses out?

I find the expression of regret to be one of the most poignant and touching parts of the ballad, and one of the most realistic too: even the baddies aren't monsters. In the Arthurian stories, Arthur's internal conflict over whether to kill or pardon Lancelot and Guinivere is often made into the dramatic crux of whole novels. Here, we have the same conflict, after it's too late. Personally, I wish Nic had left those verses in. So I'd say that, while it's possible to argue that such things ARE extraneous, you haven't really done so.

I'd like to see you expand on this, and maybe think of ways in which Nic's version is NOT ideal. That's what usually differentiates "fans-only" writing from publishable writing.

(3) A minor one: there was no "folk process," just Nic deciding which verses to sing. No argument based on the tendencies of the folk process can really apply to this version of this song.

Karen, I hope you'll take this in the spirit in which it's intended. You have a lot of good ideas, and you're thinking hard about some works of art that I think are very important. Keep up the good work!