Right Susan, I'm willing to give you my answer to your original question.

Groom in The Making of Percy's Reliques states (f/n that page) that Parsons sent 18 songs to Percy and claimed that some were 'taken down from the mouth of the Spinning Wheel'. (your questioning quote). If Parsons didn't explicitly say that Lord Lovel was one of those, then you have no question to answer.

If he did, then I would say that in the absence of any evidence to the contrary that Occam's razor applies and we take him at his word. Further up the page I linked above Groom has: Suffice to say that in eighteenth-century England, the oral tradition of ballad-singing was alive and well, and is adequately represented by the broadsides that remain. If it was alive and well, then why shouldn't Parsons have got them as he said.

You stated in the Origins:Rose-Briar Motif thread that you had the originals from Harvard. Do you mean you have copies of the 3 packets that Parsons sent Percy? If so you can answer the question easily.

Mick