"And what about the plot? Does it seem like a true account or a fictional tale calculated to appeal to a poor clientele?"
B beggar's daughter despised by rich suitors who turns out to come from a family that is richer than all three of them ?
That's the stuff folk tales are made of Richard
As for an illiterate peasant (as they would have been at the time the ballad was made), ploughing through a fifty-odd verse ballad to pick out the bits the or she didn't like - what do you think?
A later broadside hack maybe, but would a hard-pressed hack working to a deadline have time, or even be bothered to edit a ballad that length?
The latter is a possibility; the former, out of the question
"archaic popular song"."
Popular in the terms Kidson would use it, would be the same as Child's use of the term - of the people rather than top of any ancient hit parade.
Jim Carroll