Ok Steve, I have a question for you:

If on the 1720 broadside of Fair Margaret and Sweet William it says it should be sung to the tune of Lord Thomas and Fair Ellinor (1677), doesn't this mean that the latter preceded and was fairly well known already? Fair Margaret is very much the same story as it's predecessor- except purged of murder, more suitable to the changing tastes of the British in the area of romance.

Btw, doesn't matter is not an answer :-)

There is a copy of the "William and Margaret, an Old Ballad" dated 1711 in the British Museum which has been used to prove Mallet plagiarized when he took credit for the ballad. No motif on this "old" (what's old?) ballad.

The motif was added on to the "fairy" ancient ballad of William and Margaret (typo in my opening post, I meant fairly :-). The motif probably first debuted on this ballad in a broadside, perhaps even the 1720 Douce ballad- but somewhere around then.

Yet we know the motif was already in use in Horace Walpole's parody of "Lady Hounsibelle and Lord Lovel" in 1765.

Motif belongs on Lord Lovel as in Lord Levett and Lord Levett alone :)