Does she gain no favor or sympathy for standing up for Musgrove so gallanty? After all Little Matty was fair, handsome, sometimes even a gauld knight. She was of good kin too, does she get no break for her brass & sass. After all her Lord, who thinks highly of the Mat prior to his sleeping with the wife, is off tending other fields far & away, there's a moral there too. Don't leave the back door open if you're not coming home for a spell. Well, it does spin a lovely tale, no matter the version. If Lord "Stay My Hand" were cast as a better man he would have spared at least one of the two, so he's not cast as a good bedfellow & mopre of an asshole. Should she suffer him just because they're married to each other? In real life she could've dumped him, in ballad style some blood is always called for to thicken the stew.

Barry