The only English version of this ballad is a broadside in the Roxburghe Collection. The fifteenth stanza is quoted in Fletcher's comedy of 'The Pilgrim,' 1621. Kinloch is fully justified in claiming for the Scottish bailad a decided superiority. The humorous artifices which the lady practises to maintain the character of a beggar's brat are, as he says, kept up with great spirit and fancy.
Parts of this ballad inevitably suggest a parallel with the tales belonging to the class of the 'Marriage of Sir Gawain' (No. 31), to which Chaucer's Wife of Bath's Tale belongs. The Danish ballad of 'Ebbe Gait' (Grundtvig-Olrik, No. 314) has also several features in common with 'The Knight and Shepherd's Daughter.' For a discussion of the whole matter, see G.H. Maynadier, The Wife of Bath's Tale, 1901.
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