The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #163826   Message #3921734
Posted By: GUEST,Brian Peters
02-May-18 - 11:34 PM
Thread Name: Origins: James Madison Carpenter- Child Ballads 2
Subject: RE: Origins: James Madison Carpenter- Child Ballads 2
I realise we're supposed to have moved on now, but I've not done with #6 yet.

Steve G wrote: "Most of Bell's version is straight copy from Mrs. Brown."

But it isn't - not remotely. The bloke's name is different, every one of the spells is different, the phraseology is different, the Billy Blin now sits at the bed foot, etc, etc, etc. And then there's the fact that the supposed 'rewrite' only bothers to tell a fragment of the tale. To me it looks far more like a vestigial survival of a parallel ballad to Mrs Brown's. Oh, and there's the source's own testimony - or should this be disbelieved as a matter of course?