Jamieson gave this ballad from a manuscript, altering the spelling in
conformity with Scots orthography. Mr. Child prints the manuscript; here
Jamieson’s more familiar spelling is retained. The idea of the romance
occurs in a Romaic _Märchen_, but, in place of the Queen of Faery, a more
beautiful girl than the sorceress (Nereid in Romaic), restores the youth
to his true shape. Mr. Child regarded the tale as “one of the numerous
wild growths” from _Beauty and the Beast_. It would be more correct to
say that _Beauty and the Beast_ is a late, courtly, French adaptation and
amplification of the original popular “wild growth” which first appears
(in literary form) as _Cupid and Psyche_, in Apuleius. Except for the
metamorphosis, however, there is little analogy in this case. The
friendly act of the Fairy Queen is without parallel in British Folklore,
but Mr. Child points out that the Nereid Queen, in Greece, is still as
kind as Thetis of old, not a sepulchral siren, the shadow of the pagan
“Fairy Queen Proserpina,” as Campion calls her.