"That's all we're claiming as fact, nothing more."
I'm concerned with your view on origins, but as I said, the rose and briar motif belongs wherever it lands
Your opinion - once presented as irrefutable fact is spancilled from the word go by that fact that our detailed knowledge (which is sparse enough), of an oral tradition which is older than printing, only goes back as far as 1900, so everything earlier than that has to be guesswork (and sometimes wishful thinking)
One of the factors that appears to have been missed is the mixed reception songs in print received among the singers - some regarded them as unreliable, others as sacrosanct and shouldn't be altered
These were singers regarded as such rather than old people reporting what their granny's, granny had passed down
Jim