helps the hero flee". Other folktales with this motif include "Jean, the Soldier, and Eulalie, the Devil's Daughter" (France); "The Two Kings' Children", "The True Bride" and "Sweetheart Roland" (Germany); "The Master Maid" (Norway), "Anthousa, Xanthousa, Chrisomalousa" (Greece) and "Snow-White-Fire-Red" (Sicily). Another British-derived folk song, "The Turkish Lady" (Roud 8124), appears to be somewhat related; it didn't diverge recently, being noted as early as 1768. Gilbert Beckett According to the folklorist Frank Kidson, it has been "asserted, with every appearance of truth" that the protagonist is in fact Gilbert Becket, the father of Saint Thomas Becket, who was supposedly captured in the Crusades as in the ballad, released, and followed to London by a lady he met there. Kidson claimed that "Bateman", "Baker" and "Beichie" were all corruptions of "Beckett". Francis James Child said "That our ballad has been affected by the legend of Gilbert Beket is altogether likely”, suggesting that the two similar stories may have influenced each other. Distribution The ballad was very popular in print in the 1800s, with most broadsides descending from one printed in England around 1815, beginning "Lord Bateman was a noble lord..." (see texts below). Most of the versions that ended up in America were derived from popular broadside versions, however some versions, such as one known to the Hicks-Harmon family of Watuaga County, North Carolina, seemed to have been passed on from an older British oral tradition. Traditional Recordings In 1908 Percy Grainger made several wax cylinder recordings of traditional singers singing the ballad. Several of these were recorded in Lincolnshire (including one version by Joseph Taylor) and one in Gloucestershire; all of the recordings are available courtesy of the British Library Sound Archive. Dozens of other traditional versions were recorded across England later in the twentieth century. Several of these, some of which are fragments, can be heard on the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library, including a version the Dorset traveller Caroline Hughes sang to Ewan McColl and Peggy Seeger in the 1960s, a 1967 performance by a Frank Smith of Edenbridge, Kent, and a 1960 version sung by Tom Willet of Ashford, Surrey. The Scottish traditional singer Jeannie Robertson sang a version to Peter Kennedy in 1958, whilst Bella Higgins sang another to Hamish Henderson in 1955. Several other Scottish recordings were made, including some recorded by James Madison Carpenter which are also available on the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library. The