Steve: Thanks for the additonal info. I knew that 'Brake of Briars' (aka Bruton Town) was in the Decameron, but didn't realise that Child wasn't aware of it. It's one of that list that you sometimes see, of Child's notable omissions - along with 'Long A Growing', 'The Bitter Withy', 'The Shooting of his Dear' etc.

Roberto: that summary by Lomax and Kennedy is pretty accurate, but they're wrong about 'The Wife of Usher's Well', which has been collected at least three times in England.

Kent Davis: Thanks for the Gainer ballad titles. Child 2 lost its Elvish elements not only in West Virginia but pretty much everywhere else as well (as did #4). Child based his 'Elfin Knight' title on a number of Scots examples, from early broadsides and 18C oral tradition, and it was collected by Greig in Aberdeenshire - in this 'Elfin' form - as late as 1908. However the oral history of Child 2 in England, Ireland and North America, is overwhelmingly the 'Cambric Shirt' strain with the 'Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme / Every Rose Grows merry in Time' type refrains. I believe that this strain is not simply the result of the supernatural elements gradually disappearing, but is a deliberate recasting of the original impossible tasks into a new ballad. The same probably goes, IMO, for the 'Hey Ho Sing Ivy' strain, which has lost not only the Elf Knight but any semblance of a dialogue.

Any opinion on that one, Steve? Do you have early broadside exmples of 'Cambric Shirt?