Has anyone commented on how these songs seem at times to mutate into each other? Is 'The Unquiet Grave' a missing section of 'Two Brothers"? If so should they be re-combined? Liz was chasing texts to 'A Farmer of Sheffield'. This seems to start off as 'The Crafty Farmer' (Child), then the farmer's boy seems to become the protagonist and in later versions, where Liz had got to, the farmer's daughter outwits the highwayman. The song by now is heading towards 'The Outlandish Knight' There are loads of variants and variants of variants and it is not beyond the imagination to forsee the creation of a hybrid ballad from all of these which is a completely new song. The question is, does this contravene the unwritten rules of balladry?
Paul