o of this ballad was probably one of Essex's companions in the
Cadiz expedition, and various attempts have been made to identify him,
especially with a Sir John Bolle of Thorpe Hall, Lincolnshire.

"Edward, Edward," is from Percy's "Reliques." Percy had it from Lord
Hailes.

"Robin Hood" is the "Lytell Geste of Robyn Hood," printed in London by
Wynken de Worde, and again in Edinburgh by Chepman and Myllar in 1508,
in the first year of the establishment of a printing-press in Scotland.

"King Edward IV. and the Tanner of Tamworth" is a ballad of a kind once
popular; there were "King Alfred and the Neatherd," "King Henry and
the Miller," "King James I. and the Tinker," "King Henry VII. and
the Cobbler," with a dozen more. "The Tanner of Tamworth" in another,
perhaps older, form, as "The King and the Barker," was printed by Joseph
Ritson in his "Ancient Popular Poetry."

"Sir Patrick Spens" was first published by Percy in his "Reliques of
Ancient English Poetry" (1757). It was given by Sir Walter Scott in his
"Minstrelsy of the Border," and with more detail by Peter Buchan in
his "Ancient Ballads of the North." Buchan took it from an old blind
ballad-singer who had recited it for fifty years, and learnt it in
youth from another very old man. The ballad is upon an event in Scottish
history of the thirteenth century, touching marriage of a Margaret,
daughter of the King of Scotland, to Haningo, son of the King of Norway.
The perils of a winter sea-passage in ships of the olden time were
recognised by an Act of the reign of James III. of Scotland, prohibiting
all navigation "frae the feast of St. Simon's Day and Jude unto the
feast of the Purification of our Lady, called Candlemas."

"Edom o' Gordon" was first printed at Glasgow by Robert and Andrew
Foulis in 1755. Percy ascribed its preservation to Sir David Dalrymple,
who gave it from the memory of a lady. The incident was transferred
to the border from the North of Scotland. Edom o' Gordon was Sir Adam
Gordon of Auchindown, Lieutenant-Depute for Queen Mary in the North in
1571. He sent Captain Ker with soldiers against the Castle of Towie,
which was set on fire, and the Lady of Towie, with twenty-six other
persons, "was cruelly brint to the death." Other forms of the ballad
ascribe the deed, with incidents of greater cruelty, to Captain Carr,
the Lord of Estertowne.

"The Children in the Wood" was entered in the books of the Stationers'
Company on the 15th of October