ABSTRACT
In recent years this romantic ballad has been but seldom reported from Britain and Ireland. In North Am erica, on the other hand, it has flourished in a host o f variants, as a tragic ballad, a lyric song, a comic piece and in many parodies. It became a popular London m usic-hall song in the early nineteenth century and possibly owed its popularity to its circulation on broadsheets and in songsters, chapbooks and garlands. M ost o f the m ajor North Am erican collections contain a set o f the ballad, usually derived from Child ’s H -text (a London broadside, 1846).
