"Sheath and Knife" is a narrative ballad. Versions of it appear in F. J. Child's The English and Scottish Popular Ballads as #16. It appears in the Roud Folk Song Index as #3960. Of the four texts in Child, only that taken from Motherwell’s manuscript (1825) can be said to be more than a fragment of this ballad. A more complete form of the story did not appear until 1960 when Helen Mennie Shire published a 26-stanza version from the Dalhousie Manuscript. According to Professor Child, both Robert Burns and Sir Walter Scott knew versions of this ballad, which appears to be known only from the late 18th and early 19th century. Child also notes the similarity of the story to that of other ballads, such as "The Bonny Hind" (Child 50), "Lizzy Wan" (Child 51) and "The King’s Dochter Lady Jean" (Child 52). Like them, it is one of the comparatively few ballads to deal with incest. It was recorded by Tony Rose on Under the Greenwood Tree (1971), on Bare Bones (1999) and on Exe (2008), Ewan MacColl on Solo Flight (1972) and with Peggy Seeger on Blood & Roses Volume 5 (1986), Jean Redpath on There Were Minstrels (1976), Gordeanna McCulloch on Sheath and Knife (1978), Sheena Wellington on Kerelaw (1986), Maureen Jelks on First Time Ever (1988), Janet Russell on Bright Shining Morning (1993), Sangsters on Begin (1993), Maddy Prior on Flesh & Blood (1997), Eliza Carthy on Heat Light & Sound (1996), Christine Kydd on Ballads (1997) and by many others.