+The Text+ here given is the version printed, with very few variations,
in _Wit Restor'd_, 1658, _Wit and Drollery_, 1682, Dryden's
_Miscellany_, 1716, etc. The Percy Folio contains a fragmentary version,
consisting of some dozen stanzas. Child says that all the Scottish
versions are late, and probably derived, though taken down from oral
tradition, from printed copies. As recompense, we have the Scotch _Bonny
Birdy_.
+The Story+ would seem to be purely English. That it was popular long
before the earliest known text is proved by quotations from it in old
plays: as from _Fair Margaret and Sweet William_. Merrythought in _The
Knight of the Burning Pestle_ (1611) sings from this ballad a version of
stanza 14, and Beaumont and Fletcher also put quotations into the mouths
of characters in _Bonduca_ (circ. 1619) and _Monsieur Thomas_ (circ.
1639). Other plays before 1650 also mention it.
The reader should remember, once for all, that burdens are to be
repeated in every verse, though printed only in the first.