"Meanwhile, there's no record anywhere of a ditty called Johnnie O'Cockelsmuir. Doesn't exist."
Sorry Susan - it does - it's usually known as Johnny O' Braidislie or Johnny Cock (Child 114)
Bronson has a version entitled Johnny Cockalie, but Cockelsmuir is fairly common in Scotland.
"but as you know I'm with Child when it comes to Buchan."
And I have heard nothing here to change my mind on the case - but at least you are no longer declaring your theories as definitive statements, a move in the right direction I suppose.
Personally I would prefer to accept what the opinions of Gavin Greig whose findings in the field went a long way towards verifying Buchan's texts - a voices from someone far nearer the source of the question than we are.
Jim Carroll
Gavin Greig:
"The redoubtable Peter remains the prince of ballad collectors. His Gleanings of Scarce Old Ballads (1825), his Ancient Ballads and Songs of the North of Scotland (1828), together with the Chap Books which he issued from time to time, represent an amount of work in the way of collecting, editing, and printing our old ballads, that gives him a place and reputation in this particular field quite beyond serious challenge, Some recent critics like Mr T. F. Henderson are pretty hard on Peter Buchan. They have scant faith in his work. Buchan we know was himself misled at times; and he in turn doubtless misleads us now and again. The ethics of collecting and editing was pretty elastic in those days, and Peter could hardly be expected to anticipate the severer standard of a later generation. But he does not appear to have been a sinner above and beyond other collectors and editors of his own day and generation. He seems to be at least as reliable as Hogg, and much more so than Allan Cunningham. In any case only those who have themselves worked in the area which he explored are in a position to judge of the value of the results of his research; and those who possess this qualification are very far from endorsing the criticism which characterises Peter's collection as in considerable measure " a mere farrago of unauthentic doggerel."
Folk-Song of the Northeast.

Alexander Keith:
"The late Professor Child, who has been cited by some of the accusers of Buchan as their most redoubtable ally, took up, in reality, an intermediate attitude. Careful examination of Child's work reveals that he never committed himself to a condemnation of Buchan, although he constantly con¬demned passages in Buchan's ballads which he considered modern importations or examples of decadence and vulgar fancy.
Gruntvig's attitude, and the testimony of independent Aberdeenshire ballad versions procured from unpublished MSS., were sufficient to make a discerning and cautious critic like Child pause before he rejected Buchan's contributions. Child did more than pause. By inference at least he accepted Buchan as substantially reliable, and gave him the place of honour with a frequency denied to most of the other great collectors. Child, however, as late as 1891 was under the impression that the British Museum MSS. were all in Buchan's handwriting, and he did not live to see the MS. from which the 1828 Ballads were selected. Had he been able to compare the Ballads with their MS. originals, and had he been spared to see the collection made by Greig, it may be confidently asserted that the prince of ballad-editors would have been on the side of Peter Buchan."
Last Leaves of Traditional Ballads and Ballad Airs.