 This ballad has many similarities with Child ballad 8, "Erlinton", where the lovers succeed in their escape, and the fight scenes often have details in common across variants.Francis James Child only reluctantly separated them, but concluded that because the lovers' assailants are her kin in "Earl Brand" and strangers in "Erlinton", they were separate types.Scandavian variants often have a detail that Child believed was originally contained but lost from the English ballad