"Fair Margaret and Sweet William" is a narrative ballad. It appears in F. J. Child's The English and Scottish Popular Ballads as #74 and the Roud Folk Song Index as #253. Most versions that survived to the 20th century seemed to be American. Pete Seeger learned it from Ashville, North Carolina country lawyer and old-time banjo picker Bascom Lunsford in 1935. Cecil Sharp collected 17 versions in Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee and North Carolina between 1910 and 1918. The shortened version that Pete Seeger learned is found at "Lady Margaret". The ballad of Fair Margaret and Sweet William was first quoted in part in the Beaumont and Fletcher play The Knight of the Burning Pestle in 1611. The tune given here is from Bascom Lundsford via Pete Seeger. The lyrics are adapted from one of Sharp's collected versions. Like "Barbara Allen" and "Lord Lovell", this is a ballad with the twining rose and briar ending. It was printed in Percy’s Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (1765), Niles' The Ballad Book of John Jacob Niles (1961) and Sharp's English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians (1917). It was recorded by Bascom Lundsford on Smokey Mountain Ballads (1953), A.L. Lloyd on The English and Scottish Popular Ballads Volume II (1956), Pete Seeger on American Ballads (1957), Hedy West on Hedy West Volume 2 (1964), Almeda Riddle on Ballads and Hymns from the Ozarks (1972), June Tabor on An Echo of Hooves (2003) and by many others.