The ballad was provided by Mrs. Brown (née Anne or Anna Gordon), recorded by her nephew, Robert Eden Scott, in 1783 (or "shortly before"), and in the same year it was sent by her father, prof. Thomas Gordon, to william Tytler with other 14 recorded songs (so-called Tytler-Brown MS). For "Allison Gross", no other source has been found. The ballad was first published by Robert Jamieson in his Popular Ballads in 1806.
This ballad was one of 25 traditional works included in Ballads Weird and Wonderful (1912) and illustrated by the Sculptor Vernon Hill.
The first sung folk revival recording of Alison Gross was by Dave and Toni Arthur on their 1970 album Hearken to the Witches Rune (Trailer LEA 2017), three years before Steeleye Span recorded their British folk rock version on their Parcel of Rogues album. The music Steeleye composed for it was substantially more rock-influenced than most of their more folk music-influenced recordings, and they included a chorus that was not in Child's collection. The Steeleye Span version concludes with its narrator, having rebuffed the advances of Allison Gross numerous times, transformed into "an ugly worm". However, other recordings include the several additional verses chronicle his life after this, including his transformation to his proper form by the queen on Halloween. Also known as "Alison Cross", it was recorded by Lizzie Higgins, Elspeth Cowie, and Malinky. The Norwegian folk-rock band Folque produced the song in Norwegian in 1974 on their self-titled album.[1] The Czech folk band Asonance recorded this song in Czech in the year 2000. A spoken word version of the ballad was recorded by John Laurie in 1962 on the Folkways album The Jupiter Book of Ballads (Folkways Records FL9890).
