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 1595 to Thomas Millington as,
"for his Copie vnder th[e h]andes of bothe the wardens a ballad