The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #140911   Message #3287661
Posted By: GUEST,SteveG
09-Jan-12 - 02:17 PM
Thread Name: Child Ballads: US Versions
Subject: RE: Child Ballads: US Versions
The title doesn't appear in Rollins' Analytical Index to the Ballad Entries in the Stationers Register.

FWIW I think the broadside is the original. It was then totally an English ballad. When Child wrote his notes he wasn't aware of the broadside and all of the continental allusions in his headnotes to 20 actually belong to 21 Maid and the Palmer. What confused him was some Scottish antiquarian or broadside hack had fused onto the ballad the penance verses from 21 which didn't originally belong to 20. Somewhat ironically by about 1820 21 had just about disappeared in Scotland whereas the penance stanzas continued to prosper in Scottish and American versions of 20.