Hi Richie,
I'm sorry but it can't possibly be anything else, as it's definitely based on mixing Child A, a very rare ballad, with Child B a known forgery. Perhaps 'forgery' in the case of the second event is too strong a word. We don't know there was actually an intent to deceive.
The writer could just have been trying to make what they thought was a good song out of what was available in Child. They had very poor taste in my opinion but that's irrelevant. Baring Gould's concoction was appalling.

I must also admit that for a song to be rewritten and then enter oral tradition anew is very plausible. From 1894 to 1968 is an awful long time!