B is a broadside version which has had an interesting history on the Continent. It was translated into German by Friedrich Wilhelm Meyer, in 1789, in very happy style, with a denoUment in which the man gives his wife a beating and explains his cuffs as caresses which her mother has sent her. Meyer's ballad was printed in 1790. It had great and immediate success, was circulated as a broadside, and was taken up by the people, in whose mouth it underwent the usual treatment of ballads traditionally propagated. From Germany it spread into Scandinavia and Hungary, and perhaps elsewhere.
A similar ballad, 'Marion' or 'Le Jaloux,' is common in France, especially in the south. For a serious ballad exhibiting similar questions and evasions, see 'Clerk Saunders' (No, 69 F).
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