Thanks for the pointers Steve. "Butcher Boy" came over way before the printed sheet music of 1860 with Jersey City- that's obvious before even looking at the versions.

Started the US/Canada headnotes- not too long and with usual errors but here's the intro so far:

The origin and fundamental sources of The Butcher Boy have befuddled leading US musicologists from Kittredge(1916) to Cox (1925) and on to Belden (1940). The main source of confusion appears to be the underlying broadsides that in most cases were unavailable. Kittredge, however, had at his disposal the Harvard Library and Belden, despite mentioning two related early sources, The Deceased Maiden Lover and The Constant Lady and False-hearted Squire says, "The location is Sheffield park in Pitts's broadside of that title, which comes closest of all British stall prints to the American ballad. . .". Belden was unaware that the Pitts broadside was a later printing of Sheffield Park that had borrowed stanzas from "The Constant Lady/Near Woodstock" broadside which Chappell called "The Oxfordshire Tragedy[]."

Leading UK musicologists fared no better. The web of confusion that ensnared variants of "Died for Love," "Love has Brought Me To Despair," "Deep in Love" with "Waly, Waly" and "Sailor Boy, or, Sweet William" is still being regurgitated today. When Broadwood pointed out the melody of "Sailing Trade[]" was used in a version of "I Wish, I Wish" some how the compleely different texts became similar and the ballads were related.

With Steve Garham's assistance Steve Roud broke up his Roud 60 into a number distinct groups with different Roud numbers. However, the job is not complete and because of the mixing of stanzas it's difficult for any unanimous categorization. For example, look at The Traditional Ballad Index's entry for Roud 18830 which they assume is variants of Cruel Father but instead is Rambling Boy.

In the US Kittredge began by saying, "The piece appears to be an amalgamation of "The Squire's Daughter" (also known as "The Cruel Father, or, Deceived Maid") with "There is an Alehouse in Yonder Town" (well known as a student song in this country under the title "There is a Tavern in the Town")."

"The Cruel Father" ballads are somewhat different ballads with a different plot: The cruel father when he finds out his daughter is in love with a prentice boy sends him to sea where he is killed in a battle by a cannonball. The prentice's ghost haunts the father that night who come home to find his daughter has hung herself with a rope. She leaves a note blaming her father for her death.

The similarity of Cruel Father with "The Rambling Boy," is the opening line, the suicide and the "Died for Love" ending; with the Butcher Boy" the similarity is the suicide and "died for love" ending; with the later reduction "The Maidens Prayer" the similarity is the suicide and the "died for love" ending. So it's clear that Kittredge's statement shouldn't have "Squire's Daughter" in it. Certainly "There is an Alehouse" is very similar but is missing the suicide. Rambling Boy has the suicide and the reason for the suicide is similar. When Kittredge says Alehouse is "well known as a student song in this country" it should be noted that the similarity is that one stanza was taken from Alehouse/Brisk Young Lover and There is a Tavern was written around that one stanza-- it's not as if they are the same song-- but obviously the stanza is similar. So Kittredge's statement became the standard-- but in 1925 Cox refined the amalgamation--Cox now based the ballad on four different songs instead of two.

Cox states in Folk Songs of the South[], "The Butcher Boy" is made up of modified extracts from (1) "Sheffield Park"; (2) "The Squire's Daughter" (called also "The Cruel Father, or, Deceived Maid"); (3) "A Brisk Young Sailor" (or its abbreviated version, "There is an alehouse in yonder town"); and (4) "Sweet William" ("The Sailor Boy").

Cox kept Kittredge's two fundamentals (The Cruel Father, as pointed out-- is a poor choice) and added Sheffield Park and Sweet William. Additionally he said that Alehouse was an abreviation of Brisk Young Sailor which has an added opening stanza[]. Cox did not know that Sheffield Park, the Pitts broadside, was reworked by adding stanzas of another broadside[] (see above) and it is the other broadside's stanzas that are found mixed with Butcher Boy. Sheffield Park was printed circa 1770 as "The Unfortunate Maid" and later about 1790 as "The Youth from Sheffield Park." The Pitt's print of the early 1800s was reworked with a new ending derived from stanzas of Constant Lady." So it's not really Sheffield Park but Constant Lady that should be mentioned by Cox. Sweet William was mentioned by the English writers[] as having the same melody under the title, The Sailing Trade[]. There are other similarities-- Kidson's Lancashire version has the same ending stanzas-- but again the plot is different (same as Cruel father's plot is different)-- alas and alack!!! The Butcher Boy is not made up of Sweet William although the endings stanzas may be held in common.

Fifteen years later Belden and the Missouri Folklore Society published "Ballads and Songs" named, I believe, after Kittredge's 1917 article in the JAF of the same title. Belden's headnotes contend (as mentioned earlier) that Sheffield Park "comes closest of all British stall prints to the American ballad." Belden is in fact referring to the Pitt's reworded broadside and the added stanzas of "Constant Lady" as being "closest." The two early broadsides he mentions-- 1. The Deceased Maiden Lover and 2. The Constant Lady and False-hearted Squire are essentially the same. The Deceased Maiden Lover, however similar, is not the ballad used-- it's 2. Constant Lady. "The Deceased Maiden Lover" is a reworking of lutenist Robert Johnson's "A Forsaken Lover's Complaint" c. 1611. Belden's assertion may be responsible for "Deceased Maiden Lover" being listed as a version of Died For Love in Sam Henry's Songs of the People, by the editor Gale Huntington.

Yes, it's a tangled web.

Richie