This ballad may be traced back about a century in English. In Italy it has been popular for more than 250 years. According to the Italian tradition, a young man and his truelove are the object and the agent of the crime. This is also the case in several of the English versions and in some of the German. It is not unlikely, as Scott suggests, that the young man was changed to a child poisoned by a stepmother when the ballad was sung to children.
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