I have only recently become obsessed by the Muckle Sangs, and have found this thread to be fascinating and helpful, with some very valuable insights from the long experience of others, and much to agree, disagree and ponder on.

On 'editing' - I have a strong hunch that the longer versions are closer to the way the songs started their journey. It's likely that nothing is scientifically provable about ballad origins, but if you've ever tried to make a verse or two yourself (rather than a parody which I suspect is easier) you'll find how hard it is to get to the conciseness and clarity of language at the service of narrative that the ballad makers achieved. Why destroy what was so hard won? If it's too long pick a shorter one.

A case in point. The longest version of Dowie Dens of Yarrow, first printed by John Veitch from a reciter in Peebles, Child's 214L, is also the most finely crafted, with many rhymes and near-rhymes in the odd as well as even lines. It also encapsulates the comparatively slim tale of Willie's Drowned in Yarrow. Veitch is convinced it is the original, or close to it, and he also makes a case for the identity of the heroine.

With its fine touches of imagery and detail it makes the other versions look (more or less) degenerate. The master art of the singer has been acknowledged here. Why do we have such a problem with the notion of a master makar who knew what they were doing? He/she could be a ploughman-poet like Burns, but don't ignore the poet component. Even socialism needs specialists.

The idea that some people are 'folk' and the rest are something else is a strange one. We all breathe the same air. Ballad makers were very much part of the community they made the songs for - they may be anonymous now, but they were people with a craft and a function, and they knew their audience. In the case of some Border ballads, they were 'praise singers' for their lairds and usually very partisan in the way they described events, probably out of necessity. If what they wrote was any good then, it is still good now. Lang may their rhymes ring.