Back in fifty seven (middle of last century)alongside my research on "Edward, My Son Edward" and "Lord Randall, MY Son" I did a search in the publications on "The Raggle Taggle Gypsies" and had about two hundred and fifty citations; Lord Randal and Edward had a great many more. Some of the citations dated to the fourteen hundreds. The conclusion reached by my professor and myself was to the effect that "The Gypsies" as we called it was an early retelling of the Orfeus myth in a form that could be sung and understood by the audiences of the times. No way of knowing, of course, how many permutations it had gone through, nor has it stopped changing as time goes. I quit working on it because of time considerations;
also it seemed a daunting project for a quarters terminal. It would certainly be worse now. Good for a master's thesis at least. I had no desire to go to graduate school then and now in my seventies--naah. Run for it somebody.