"The Daemon Lover" (Roud 14, Child 243) – also known as "James Harris", "A Warning for Married Women", "The Distressed Ship Carpenter", "James Herries", "The Carpenter’s Wife", "The Banks of Italy", or "The House-Carpenter" – is a popular ballad dating from the mid-seventeenth century, when the earliest known broadside version of the ballad was entered in the Stationers' Register on 21 February 1657. History and different versions There are a number of different versions of the ballad. In addition to the eight collected by Francis James Child in volume IV of his anthology The English and Scottish Popular Ballads (versions A to H), others can be found in Britain and in the United States, where it remained especially widespread, with hundreds of versions being collected throughout the years, around 250 of them in print. In comparison, only four new variants were recorded in the UK in the time between Child's death in 1896 and the second half of the 1960s, all of them before 1910. "A Warning for Married Women" (Child A) The oldest version of the ballad – labeled 243 A in Child’s anthology and originally signed with the initials L.P. – is generally attributed to Laurence Price, a prominent ballad writer of that time. The original, full title of the broadside was "A Warning for Married Women, by the example of Mrs. Jane Renalds, a West-Country woman born neer unto Plymouth, who having plighted her troth to a seaman, was afterwards married to a carpenter, and at last carried away by a spirit, the manner how shall be presently recited". The broadside does not seem to be a recasting of a pre-existing folk ballad in circulation, although it bears some similarities to other ballads, most notably a similarly named "A Warning for Maidens", also known by the title "Bateman's Tragedy" (Roud 22132). "A Warning for Married Women" tells the story of Jane Reynolds and her lover James Harris, with whom she exchanged a promise of marriage. He is pressed as a sailor before the wedding takes place and Jane faithfully awaits his return for three years, but when she learns of his death at sea, she agrees to marry a local carpenter. Jane gives birth to three children and for four years the couple lives a happy life. One night, when the carpenter is away, the spirit of James Harris appears. He tries to convince Jane to keep