Tifty's Annie is Scottish, not English.

Having been published several times, it is a case where, as Lloyd comments, broadsides and the oral tradition are as mixed as 'Psyche's seeds.' Robert Jameson (1806) has a version of it taken down from a stall copy. It is sometimes said to be about a real woman who died in the 17th century, but nobody can know this for certain. What seems certain is that the ballad was taken up by Scottish 'romantics' as evidenced in the placing of a statute of one of the characters on the top of a castle nearby.

I cannot let Jim Carroll's analysis of this song pass.

1 If it is intended to support a view that this song is an apt example to answer Richard's request for an example of a song showing expert inside knowledge of life at the bottom, it fails. Witchcraft trials were common knowledge. The comment on 'changing' social structure in the Scotland of the 17th century is for me too vague. Most people have some social knowledge of their country.

2 The most striking thing about this song as 'social history', which Mr Carroll appears to be quite blind to, is that it is about extreme domestic violence.