Don't be so arch as to pretend the comment: Oh yeah, it was one of my professors. But you wouldn't know him. He's not famous. was off-hand. It has the clear meaning that your readers would only know him, and by implication have any regard for what he said, if he was famous. (The remark is attributed to Huxley).
My digression was not intended to give you shit, merely to point out that it's good manners to identify yourself consistently rather than as one of numerous anonymous guests. Unwelcome Guest would do fine if you use it consistently and don't want to use a member name. (I don't know why you think you're unwelcome, though as I also said above, I haven't been reading the Rose and Briar thread, but I promise I'll read all 300+ posts tomorrow. And that's a change to my usual policy - when a thread is that long I think it's usually not worth pursuing).
If you check my posts (click on my name in this post), you will find that I almost always only post information on songs and singers. If I have anything to add to a discussion on songs I post, if I don't have anything to add I don't post. I've never tried to talk anyone out of posting on any subject. (Nor do I believe in mysterious gate-keepers or folk-police on Mudcat. As far as I can tell - and I studiously avoid threads once these discussions start - they only get mentioned when someone disagrees with the opinions of the mentioner).
When I read your original post, I thought (as I said in my post to Steve above) that it was an offshoot of a discussion in the Child Ballads 5 thread, questioning the veracity of the early ballad publishers. I had nothing really to say about that, but I did take the time to look up the Walpole papers (hence my note on the missing last verse). In fact I'm still not sure quite what your point is. Are you suggesting that Percy made up the version from Walpole's? I would have thought that someone had probably checked the Percy papers for the two copies supposedly from Parsons and could tell if they were written by Percy or someone else. Walpole's letter says he learned the song some 25 years previously, so as I said above, it's not impossible the two versions have some common antecedent (although Walpole also says he may have remembered it imperfectly and if it was poorly remembered, then agreeing so closely with another version might suggest the two were more than distant cousins. But I wouldn't suggest that unless I knew the Parsons' copies didn't exist)
If you do want a piece of my venerable wisdom, don't let the discussions get you down. The posters here are probably quite nice in real life, but in general people seem to have trouble maintaining any lightness in online discussions (the lack of visual cues). Trust me - I'm really a fun guy (ask anyone who's heard my introductions to songs in folk clubs) and I don't want to give you (or anyone else for that matter) any grief. (Oh, and I've met Steve Gardham too - you'd laugh if you just saw him (sorry Steve!)). I promise from now on I'll stick to the point - no digressions!