Phew! A lot to go at here.

Firstly, Shimrod, your postings of 5.45 and 8.22 spot on IMHO!

Brian,
My opinion on 'Most of the international corpus' being derived originally from (not just broadsides) commercially driven writing is based on many years' study and comparison of broadsides with oral versions, in multiple versions verse for verse, line for line. As has been said no-one can prove or disprove this except in a relatively small number of cases. In most cases all we have to go on is the earliest known variant, and this is, in 95% of cases on the broadside or the actual sheet music or other commercial publication. I am happy to accept Jim's beliefs, but don't know to what extent he has studied the broadside tradition.

I have done detailed studies on all PB's manuscripts and publications and compared all of his versions with other known versions of the same ballads, yes, all of them. In the vast majority of cases PB's versions are appreciably longer than any other version, eked out by 'nauseous repetition and overuse of commonplaces' to use Child's phraseology. You must be aware of THE FACT that Child mercilessly and justifiably(IMHO)slates these versions in at least his first 4-5 volumes before he feels he has to bow to his mentor, Svend Grundtvig, and then he falls silent on PB's versions until we get his last stab at PB on the very last note to a PB ballad. ESPB Dover Vol 5, p182.

By sheer coincidence I have just received 'The Ballad and Oral Literature' ed. Joseph Harris, which is largely a collection of scholarly papers on the Child Ballads delivered at a Harvard symposium in 1988. The list of contributors is impressive.

Harris's intro quotes from Sargent and Kittredge (KItteredge writing)
'Mere learning will not guide an editor through [the perplexities of ballad tradition]. What is needed is, in addition, a complete understanding of the 'popular' genius, a sympathetic recognition of the traits that characterize oral literature wherever and and in whatever degree they exist . . . In reality a kind of instinct, [this faculty] had been so cultivated [in Child] by long and loving study of the traditional literature of all nations that it had become wonderfully swift in its operations and almost infallible'

This I believe to be true and accept, though not blindly. His criticism of PB in particular is wholly justified.(IMHO)
And, Jim, we are most certainly in accord over the Jamie Rankin controversy. He didn't actually employ Rankin until most of his collecting had been done, and Bell Robertson who knew the Rankins well attested that Blind Jamie hadn't the wit to supply such material.

Re John o' Hazelgreen. It's not just the extra length eked out by those nauseous repetitions, but the rather childish silly additions of the 2 lovers having only met each other in their dreams. Nothing like this found in any other version and for why? Don't even try to answer.