I want to get better at writing about folk songs. Looking back at what I wrote about Archie D. I felt I was being too harsh on Aunt Molly Jackson and dwelled too much on the tune similarities which are presumably a coincidence. She told Alan Lomax that she arranged these unusual ballads from print as we can hear at the end of the Lady Nancy (Child 269) recording. I'm still learning as I go along. I enjoy doing version comparisons of folk songs as a hobby.

Here's my rewritten article on Aunt Molly Jackson's Archie D. (I wish I could delete or change my article above):

I did not recognise "Archie D." as a version of Lord Saltoun and Auchanachie (Child 239) previously but that's exactly what it is. Aunt Molly Jackson arranged it from print. Child 239 is rare in oral tradition and has never been found outside of Scotland. Gavin Greig and the Reverend James Bruce Duncan collected three fragmentary texts and two tunes in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, in 1908, and a more complete text with tune was collected from Joe Rae of Ayrshire in the 1990s who learned it from his grandfather.

Aunt Molly Jackson was known to arrange songs from a copy of Francis James Child's ballad books she was given by folklorist Tillman Cadle and his wife Mary Elizabeth Barnicle sometime before the Lomaxes recorded her. She made her own version of "The Birth of Robin Hood" (Child 102) because she liked and could identify with the Robin Hood character. She adapted it from Child 102, Version B, from Peter Buchan's "Ballads of the North of Scotland" (1828). She sang many genuine folk songs that agree with other Kentucky versions, mind you, but the ones that haven't been collected from other singers in America are likely to be her own creations which she was open to admit to Alan Lomax. She told him she composed the songs based on texts from a ballad book.

By curious coincidence Aunt Molly Jackson's tune is similar to the traditional tune Joe Rae (1937–2019) of Ayrshire, Scotland, used for Achnachie Gordon. Joe told Mike Yates in 2001 that his grandfather, John Rogerson, learned Achnachie Gordon in South Africa, where it was sung by a fellow Gordon Highlander sometime during the Boer War.

Robert B. Waltz on the Mudcat Café Forum kindly pointed out an observation by William Bernard McCarthy on Child 239's unusual stanza pattern for me. Standard ballad meter is 4343 rhymed xaxa. Child 239 is 4444 rhymed aabb. The peculiar stanza pattern of Child 239 lends itself to such a tune. Perhaps both sources recalled and borrowed from another tune that follows this pattern. We may presume that the similarity with Joe Rae's tune is a coincidence. The 2nd half of Nic Jones' folk revival tune for "Annachie Gordon" also resembles both tunes unless my ears are failing me. The "Buchan's bonny" part is different, but when Nic Jones sings "For Annachie Gordon, oh he's bonny and he's braw", that's similar. Nic Jones adapted the Child 239 tune found in Christie's Traditional Ballad Airs.

Joe Rae's "Achnachie Gordon" can be heard here:
https://archives.vwml.org/songs/RoudFS/S227171
Recorded by Mike Yates at Joe's home in Bigholm, Ayrshire, Scotland, on April 12, 2001. From the CD "The Broom Blooms Bonny" (2001) Musical Traditions MTCD313. Previously printed in Sheila Douglas' "Come Gie's a Sang" (1995) pp.4-5.

Joe's text follows Child 239, Version A, from Peter Buchan's "Ballads of the North of Scotland", II, 133, 1828, closely, leaving out a few incomplete and inessential stanzas.

Archie D. - Sung by Aunt Molly Jackson (Mary Magdalene Garland Stewart Jackson Stamos) (1880–1960) of Clay County, Kentucky. She learned songs from her great-grandmother, Nancy MacMahan, at an early age and was also known to write her own songs and arrange ballads from print. Recorded by Alan and Elizabeth Lomax in New York on May 27, 1939.

Part 1:

Archie D. was beautiful and easy on the eye
He tempted all the women they could not pass him by.
He tempted every woman, just as he tempted me
I'll die if I don't get my lover Archie D.

Up spake her old father as he walked by the door
Oh Jean my darling...

Up stepped her old father as he passed by the door
Oh Jean you're playing the tricks of a whore
You are caring for a man that cares little for thee
You must marry Bill Shelton and forget Archie D..

To marry Bill Shelton, I'd rather be dead
I'd rather marry my Archie and beg for my bread
Oh Jean you're foolish, you don't understand
Bill Shelton has money and a lot of free land.

You have money for yourself Jean and land and money to give me
But you'll never have nothing if you marry Archie D..
But I love Archie, and Archie he loves me
I'll die if I don't get my lover Archie D..

Then up spoke her father, he spake in renown
Saying cheer up my daughter, get on your wedding gown
Go marry Bill Shelton for ten thousand pounds
Oh cheer up my darling and get on your wedding gown.

Part 2:

...ready my daughter and led through the town
Than marry Bill Shelton...

Get ready my daughter and go to town with me
And marry Bill Shelton and forget this Archie D..
I'll marry no man but my love Archie D.
For I dearly love Archie and I know he loves me.

Yes I dearly love Archie and I know he loves me
And I'll die if I don't get my love Archie D..
Jean sat in her chamber and closed up her door
Saying farewell dear father you shall see me no more.

Archie may be drownded in the blue briny sea
I'll die if I can't get my love Archie D..
I'm sure I can never be Archie D.'s wife
So I have decided to end my own life.

That evening young Archie come home from the sea
And asked one of her maidens where Jeannie might be
She has destroyed her life sir because she loved thee
She destroyed her life for the love of Archie D..

Oh this is a pity oh this is a sin
Please take me to the chamber that my darling died in
Then she led him to the chamber where Jean Gordon lay
He kissed her pale lips as cold as the clay.

Saying I always intended to make her my wife
Then he kneeled down by the side of her and ended his own life.

Joe Rae's "Achnachie Gordon" for comparison:

Achnachie Gordon is bonny and braw,
He would tempt ony woman that ever he saw.
He would tempt ony woman, sae has he tempted me,
And I'll dee if I getna my love Achnachie.

In comes her faither skipping on the floor,
Says, "Jeannie, you are trying the tricks of a whore.
Ye're carin for them that cares naething for thee.
Ye maun mairry Saltoun, forget Achnachie."

"Achnachie Gordon he is but a man,
Although he be pretty, whaur lies his free land?
Saltoun's houms[*] they lie bonny, his toors they stand hie,
Ye maun mairry Saltoun, forget Achnachie."

"Ye that are my parents to church may me bring,
But unto young Saltoun I'll ne'er bear a son.
For son or for daughter I'll ne'er bow my knee,
And I'll dee if I getna my love Achnachie."

When Jeannie was mairrit from church was brocht hame,
When wi aa her maidens sae merry should hae been.
When wi aa her maidens sae merry should hae been,
She's called for a chamber to weep there her lane.

"Come to your bed, Jeannie, my honey and my sweet,
For to style you mistress, I do not think it meet."
"Mistress or Jeannie, it is aa yin tae me,
For it's in your bed, Saltoun, I never will be."

Then oot spak her faither, he spak with renown,"
Some o' you that are her maidens, ye'll loose aff her goun.
Some o' you that are her maidens, ye'll loose aff her goun,
And I'll mend the mairriage wi ten thousand croon."

Then yin o' her maidens they loosed aff her goun,
But bonny Jeannie Gordon she fell in a swoon.
She fell in a swoon low down by their knee,
Sayin, "Look on, I dee for my love Achnachie."

That very same mornin Miss Jeannie did dee,
Aye and hame come Achnachie, hame frae the sea.
Her faither and mither welcomed him at the yett,
He said, "Where's Miss Jeannie that she's nae here yet?"

Then forth come her maidens all wringing their hauns,
Sayin, "Alas for your staying sae lang frae the land.
Sae lang frae the land and sae lang frae the fleed,
They hae wadded your Jeannie and noo she is deid."

"Some o' you that are maidens, tak me by the haund,
An show me the chamber that Jeannie dee'd in."
He's kissed her cauld lips that were caulder than stane,
An he's dee'd in the chamber that Jeannie dee'd in.

[*] houms = low-lying land by a river

The original recording of Aunt Molly Jackson's "Archie D." can be found here:
https://lomaxky.omeka.net/items/show/1458
And here (the recording is split in two parts):
https://lomaxky.omeka.net/items/show/1460