Too true, John. Many of those ballads 'tidied up' even 'concocted' by the antiquarians have quickly fallen back into oral tradition. Look at Burns' stuff as well.

'It seems to me that "The Douglas Tragedy" was crafted out of Earl Bran'. Highly unlikely, Susan. Earl Brand is a different ballad to Douglas Tragedy. They have no text in common. They have a common origin in Ribold and Guldborg, yes, along with Erlinton. I think if Child had had access to all of the versions before he published he would have given EB and DT different numbers as he did with Erlinton. There is really only one version of EB with a few minor differences and my bet is it was made up quite recently after 1814 and based on Jamieson's translation of R&G. The stall copy of DT from which all other versions are derived barring Percy's has actual text in common with Percy though not much. It is a great pity that so much of Percy's Ms version was lost.