+The Text+ is from Percy's _Reliques_ (vol. ii., 1765: vol. iii., 1767).
In the latter edition he also gives the English version of the ballad
earlier in the same volume.
+The Story.+--This ballad, as it is one of the most beautiful, is also
one of the most popular. It should be compared with _Fair Margaret and
Sweet William_, in which the forlorn maid dies of grief, not by the hand
of her rival.
A series of Norse ballads tell much the same tale, but in none is the
'friends' will' a crucial point. Chansons from Burgundy, Bretagne,
Provence, and northern Italy, faintly echo the story.
Lord Thomas his mither says that Fair Annet has no 'gowd and gear';
yet later on we find that Annet's father can provide her with a horse
shod with silver and gold, and four-and-twenty silver bells in his mane;
she is attended by a large company, her cleading skinkles, and her belt
is of pearl.