+The Text+ is taken from Buchan's MSS., the Scots version being rather
more condensed than the corresponding English broadside. There is a
reference to this ballad in Munday's _Downfall of Robert, Earl of
Huntington_ (1598); but earlier still, Skelton hints at it in _Colyn
Cloute_.
+The Story+ can be paralleled in French, Danish, and Persian ballads and
tales, but is simple enough to have been invented by almost any people.
Compare also the story of _The Wright's Chaste Wife_ by Adam of Cobsam,
E.E.T.S., 1865, ed. F. J. Furnivall.