In the Stationers' Registers, Oct. 6, 1600, there was entered to William White, by the consent of Widow Danter, 'A merye, pleasant and delectable history betwene Kinge Edward the IIIJ th and a Tanner of Tamworthe,' and, by like consent of the Widow Danter, "the bal[l]ad of the same matter that was printed by her husband John Danter." Arber, in, 173. The ballad mentioned in this entry is unquestionably our ballad, or an earlier form of it. No copy from the first half of the seventeenth century is known to be preserved. The "delectable history" entered under the same date is extant in an edition of 1596. printed by John Danter. and in one of 1613, printed by William White (both edited in Child, v, 81 ff.). The ballad, as we have it, was made by abridging the fifty-six stanzas of the history to thirty-nine, with other changes. The history itself has its undoubted original in 'The King and the Barker' (printed in Child, v, 78 ft .), between which and the history, though the former lias come down to us in a sadly mutilated condition, and has been freely treated in the remodelling, there still remain a few verbal correspondences. Several good points are added in the history, and one or two dropped.
Other similar rhymed tales in English are John the Reeve (Percy Manuscript), Rauf Coilyear, King Edward III and the Shepherd (Hartshorne's Ancient Metrical Tales), King Henry II and the Miller of Mansfield (Child, v, 84 ff.), etc.
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