+The Text+ is here given from the Percy Folio, with some emendations as
suggested by Child.
+The Story+, if we omit the hard tests imposed on the maid's affection,
is widely popular in a series of Scandinavian ballads,--Danish, Swedish,
and Norwegian; and Percy's edition (in the _Reliques_) was popularised
in Germany by Buerger's translation.
The disagreeable nature of the final insult (stt. 27-29), retained here
only for the sake of fidelity to the original text, may be paralleled by
the similarly sudden lapse of taste in the _Nut-Brown Maid_. We can but
hope--as indeed is probable--that the objectionable lines are in each
case interpolated.
'Child,' as in 'Child Roland,' etc., is a title of courtesy = Knight.