....Just Another Tune

Songs & Their History

“The Water Is Wide”
The History Of A “Folksong”

Introduction

The "Water is Wide" is among of the best and the most popular songs of the Folk Revival era. It has been

More Song Histories Mary Of The Wild Moor Brennan On The Moor Lady Franklin’s Lament The Parting Glass Eileen Aroon Farewell To Tarwathie Buffalo Skinners

recorded by countless artists and is usually regarded as an "old Folk song"  But in fact it has a complicated, very interesting and surprising history. Here are the lyrics as sung by Joan Baez and Bob Dylan in 1975, available on Dylan's Live 1975, released in 2002: 

The water is wide and I can't cross over
And neither have I wings to fly
Build me a boat that can carry two
And both shall row My love and I

There is a ship and it sails on the sea
loaded deep as deep can be
But not as deep as the love I'm in
I know not if I sink or swim

I leaned my back up against an oak
Thinkin' it was a trusty tree
But first it bent and then it broke
just like my own false love to me

Oh love is gentle and love is kind
Gay as a jewel when first it's new
But love grows old and waxes cold
And fades away like the morning dew

The water is wide and I can't cross over
And neither have I wings to fly wings
Build me a boat that can carry two
And both shall row My love and I

One version of the tune:

I.

"The Water Is Wide" is loosely related to the Scottish song "Waly, Waly, Gin Love Be Bonny" that was first published - only a text, no music - in Allan Ramsay's immensely popular Tea-Table Miscellany, Vol. 2 between 1724 - 1727 (here on p. 186 of the 9th ed. 1733,  and on p. 170 of the 13th ed., 1788):

O, waly waly up the bank 
And waly, waly down the brae, 
And waly waly yon burn-side 
Where I and my love wont to gae.
I leaned my back unto an aik
And thought it was a trusty tree
But first it bow'd and syne it brak
Sae my true love did lightly me. 

O waly, waly, but love be bonnie 
A little time while it is new, 
But when 'tis auld it waxes cauld 
And fades away like morning dew. 
O wherefore should I busk my heid, 
Or wherefore should I kame my hair? 
For my true-love has me forsook, 
And says he'll never love me mair. 

Now Arthur's seat shall be my bed, 
The sheets shall ne'er be fyl'd by me, 
St. Anton's well shall be my drink, 
Since my true love has forsaken me. 
Martinmas wind, when wilt thou blaw, 
And shake the green leaves aff the tree?
O gentle death, when wilt thou come?
For of my life I am weary.

'Tis not the frost that freezes fell,
Nor blawing snaw's inclemenciy
'Tis not sic cauld that makes me cry,
But my love's heart grown cauld to me.
When we came in by Glasgow town,
We were a comely sight to see;
My love was clad in the black velvet,
And I mysell in cramasie.

But had I wist before I kiss't
That love had been sae ill to win,
I'd lock'd my heart in a case of gold, 
And pinn'd it wi' a silver pin. 
Oh, oh! if my young babe were born, 
And set upon the nurse's knee, 
And I myself were dead and gane, 
For a maid again I'll never be.

A shorter version with four verses and a melody was printed in 1725 in the first edition of William Thomson's Orpheus Caledonius (1725, p. 34, see also scotmus.com):

And wale' wale' up yon Bank,
And wale' wale' down yon brae.
And wale' wale' by yon River's side,
Where my love and I was wont to gae.

Wale' wale' gin Love be bonny,
A little while when it's new.
But when it's old, it waxes cauld,
And wears away, like morning Dew.

I leant my back unto an Oak, 
I thought it was a trusty tree. 
But first it bow'd and sine it Brake 
And sae did my true love to me.

When Cockle Shells turn Silver Bells,
and Mussles grow on ev'ry tree,
When Frost and Snaw shall warm us a'
Then shall my Love prove true to me. 

Ramsay has marked "Waly, Waly" as an old song, but we don't know how old it was when he published it. Nor do we know if and how much Ramsay and Thomson have edited their texts.

Some verses can be found in variants of the ballad "Jamie Douglas" (see Child No. 204), first printed in a fragmentary version in David Herd's Ancient and Modern Scottish Songs (Vol. 1, 1776, p. 144 in the edition published in 1869; see also Motherwell 1827, p. 395, Chambers 1829, p. 133-140). Motherwell (p. 407) claims that this ballad was "frequently sung to the same tune as ‘Waly, Waly, Up The Bank’" but the one he has included (p. 421) doesn't look that similar. Lord Douglas and Lady Erskine were divorced in 1681 so the ballad of course must have been written after that date and according to most experts "Waly, Waly" seems to predate "Jamie Douglas" (see Friedman 1956, p. 101, also Allen 1954, p. 166). 

A Yule medley added in the 1620s to an older manuscript includes a verse that looks strikingly similar to one from "Waly, Waly" (see Child No. 204, p. 93):

If I had wist before I had kist,
that love had been so dear to win;
My heart I would have clos'd in gold,
and pinn'd it with a silver pin. 

"Waly, Waly" also shares four verses with "Arthur's Seat Shall Be My Bed, or: Love in Despair" (ca. 1701, "a new song much in request", available at NLS: The Word On The Street; see Child, p. 93 and p. 105, see also Allen, p. 167):´

[...]

O Arthur's Seat shall be my Bed,
and the Sheets shall never be fil'd for me
St. Anthony's well shall be my Drink,
Since my, true Love's forsaken me.

[...]

It's not the Cold that makes me cry, 
nor is't the Weet that wearies me:
Nor is't the Frost that freezes fell:
but I love a Lad, and I dare not tell.

[...]

Oh, oh! if my young Babe were born,
and set upon the Nurses Knee,
And I my self were dead and gone,
for a Maid again I'le never be.

Martinmass wind when wilt thou blow,
and blow the green leafs of the Tree,
O! gentle Death when wilt thou come,
for of my Life I am wearie.

"Waly, Waly" was published in a lot of  early important song collections.

• for example in: Thomas Percy's influential Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, Vol. 3, 1765, here in the 3rd ed. 1775, p. 144, (Internet Archive)
• David Herd, Ancient and Modern Scottish Songs, 1769, here p. 81 in Vol. 1 of the 2nd ed., reprint 1869 (Internet Archive)
• James Johnson, The Scots Musical Museum, Vol. 2, 1788, p. 166 & Vol. 5, 1797, p. 458 (Google Books)
• David Sime, The Edinburgh Musical Miscellany, Vol. 2, 1793, p. 328 (at the Internet Archive)
• Joseph Ritson, Scotish Songs, 1794, 2nd ed. 1869, p. 235 (Internet Archive)
• John Turnball & Patrick Buchan, The Garland of Scotia. A Musical Wreath of Scotish Song, Glasgow 1841, p. 54 (Internet Archive)
• Edward F. Rimbault, Musical Illustrations of Bishop Percy's Reliques..., 1850, p. 102 (Google Books)
• George F. Graham, The Popular Songs of Scotland, 1856, new edition 1887, p. 8/9 (Internet Archive)

It seems that the song was very popular during the 18th and 19th century. The melody was used by John Gay in his ballad opera  Polly (1729) and also by James Worsdale in A cure for a scold. As it is now acting at the theatres in London and Dublin, with universal applause (Dublin 1738, Air V, p. 55, ESTC T184833, available at ECCO). Mr. Worsdale's new lyrics are worth quoting:

Alas, from every Joy debarr'd,
To what hard fate is Woman born;
Our tender Passion's best reward
Is cold Contempt and killing Scorn:
For Men inconstant as the Wind,
Expert in false deluding Arts,
When most caress'd, are most unkind,
They only win to break our hearts

Allan Ramsay's Tea-table Miscellany were reprinted regularly. 1793 saw the 18th edition. The text of his "Waly, Waly" was included in many songsters, for example in collections like: 

• The Lark (1740, 1742), 
• The Merry Companion (1742), 
• The Charmer (1752, 1765), 
• The Scots Blackbird (1766, 1768), 
• The Blackbird (1771, 1783)
• The Diary Maid: Or, Vocal Miscellany (1784).

It was also available in chap-books and on broadsides like:

• Four excellent new [sic!] songs.: 1, Waly waly up the bank 2, The ploughman laddie 3, Jack of all trades. 4, Sylvia and her lover (ca. 1780), 
• The battle of prestopans: to which is added, Waly, Waly (Stirling 1825)

and on these two Long song sheets printed some time between 1813 and 1838:

• The Covent Garden Syren; a collection of the most admired songs (Johnson Ballads, fol. 8)
• The Thistle (Johnson Ballads, fol. 28)

A quick search at COPAC shows that it was regularly published in new professional musical arrangements, for example in Robert Bremner's A second set of Scots songs, adapted for a voice & harpsichord (between 1755 and 1759) or:

• O waly waly up the bank : a popular Scotish [sic] melody ... / the symphonies & accompaniments composed by Alexr. Robertson (18??)
• O waly waly : a favorite old Scotish [sic] song / arranged for the piano forte with a 2nd voice part ad lib, by R.A. Smith (18??)
• O waly, waly, up the bank : favorite Scotch song / with new symphony & accompaniments by J. Macpherson (1878)

The song was also known in the USA. The Swedish Opera singer Christina Nilsson performed it her concerts and it was published in 1870 in  The Authorized Edition of [her] Songs as sung by her in America (available at the Lester S. Levy Collection of Sheet Music), Ralph Waldo Emerson included the text in his poetry anthology Parnassus (1875, p. 382), the melody was used for teaching the violin (Howe's New Violin Without A Master, 1847, p. 111) and Carl Sandburg used a minimalist version  for his American Songbag (1927, p. 16). 

It was also  collected from oral tradition (see Emrich 1972, p. 528; also at the DTDB) and has been recorded during the Folk Revival era, for example by Hermes Nye (Early English Ballads From The Percy And Child Collections, 1957 Folkways FW 02305), by Peggy Seeger & Ewan MacColl (Two-Way Trip, 1961, Folkways FW 08755) and not at least by John Jacob Niles whose eccentric version was first released in 1953 on American Folk Love Songs to Dulcimer Accompaniment (Boone-Tolliver BTR-22, 10" LP) and then in 1959 on An Evening With John Jacob Niles (Tradition TLP1036, available at amazon.co.uk)

II.

"The Water Is Wide" as we know it today - with a melody very different from the one used for "Waly, Waly" - was introduced to the American Folk Revival audiences by Pete Seeger on his American Favourite Ballads, Vol. 2, Folkways FW 02321 (1958). He had learned it from his sister Peggy (see the liner notes to Pete Seeger, American Favourite Ballads Vol. 1-5, Folkways FW 40155, here Vol. 2, p.15 [pdf]).:

The water is wide, I cannot get over
Neither have I wings to fly.
Give me a boat that can carry two,
And both shall row, my love and I.

A ship there is and she sails the sea,
She's loaded deep as deep can be.
But not· so deep as the love I'm in,
And I know not how I sink or swim.

I leaned my back up against some .young oak,
Thinking he was a trusty tree.
But first he bended, and then he broke,
And thus did my false love to me.

I put my hand into some soft bush,
Thinking the sweetest flower to find.
I pricked my finger to the bone,
And left the sweetest flower alone .

Oh, love is handsome and love is fine,
Gay as a jewel when first it is new,
But love grows old, and waxes cold,
And fades away like summer dew .

Pete Seeger's "The Water Is Wide" is clearly a slightly edited variant of a song called "O Waly, Waly" from Cecil Sharp’s Folk Songs From Somerset. Third Series (1906, p. 32/33): 

The water is wide l cannot get o'er
And neither have I wings to fly. 
Give me a boat that will carry two 
And both shall row, my Love and I.

O, down in the meadows the other day 
A-gath'ring flow'rs both fine and gay, 
A-gathering flowers, both red and blue, 
I little thought what love can do.

I put my hand into one soft bush 
Thinking the sweetest flower to find. 
I pricked my finger right to the bone, 
And left the sweetest flower alone.

I leaned my back up against some oak 
Thinking that he was a trusty tree: 
But first he bended and then he broke; 
And so did my false Love to me.

A ship there is and she sails the sea, 
She's loaded deep as deep can be, 
But not so deep as the love I'm in: 
I know not if I sink or swim.

O, love is handsome and love is fine, 
And love's a jewel while it is new, 
But when it is old, it groweth cold 
And fades away Iike morning dew.

Benjamin Britten's popular classical arrangement (in: Folk Song Arrangements, Vol. 3: British Isles, 1947, see Peter Pears with Britten himself on the piano at YouTube)  is also based on this version.

A second variant with some minor changes in the text and two additional verses was published 10 years later in Sharp's One Hundred English Folk Songs (1916, p. 90). Interestingly this version was recorded by Andrew Rowan Summers for Folkways (The Faulse Lady, FW02044) in 1954: 

The water is wide, I cannot get o'er
And neither have I wings to fly.
O go and get me some little boat
To carry o'er my true love and I.

A-down in the meadows the other day,
A-gath'ring flow'rs, both fine and gay,
A-gath'ring flowers, both red and blue,
I little thought what love could do.

I put my hand into one soft bush
Thinking the sweetest flow'r to find,
I prick'd my finger to the bone,
And left the sweetest flow'r alone.

I leaned my back up against some oak,
Thinking it was a trusty tree.
But first he bended and then he broke,
So did my love prove false to me.

Where love is planted, O there it grows,
It buds and blossoms like some rose;
It has a sweet and a pleasant smell,
No flow'r on earth can it excel.

Must I be bound, O and she go free!
Must I love one that does not love me!
Why should I act such a childish part,
And love a girl that will break my heart.

There is a ship sailing on the sea,
She's loaded deep as deep can be,
But not so deep as in love I am;
I care not if I sink or swim.

O love is handsome and love is fine,
And love is charming when it is true;
As it grows older it groweth colder
And fades away like the morning dew.

"Waly, Waly" as published by Sharp is no ancient "Folk song", in fact it was compiled by him from parts of three different field recordings he had made in Somerset. One was by Mrs. Caroline Cox (1905, Karpeles, No. 35, version A, p. 171; also in Allen, p. 163 and online at the Mudcat Discussion Board quoted by Malcolm Douglas; Roud ID S164526 ) from whom he took the melody and most of the verses:

Down in the meadows the other day,
Gathering flowers both fine and gay,
Gathering flowers both red and blue,
I little thought what love can do.

I put my hand into the bush
Thinking the sweetest flower to find,
I pricked my finger to the bone
And leaved the sweetest flower alone.

I leaned my back against some oak
Thinking it was a trusty tree.
First he bended, then he broke
And so did my false love to me.

There is a ship sailing on the sea
But it's loaded so deep as deep can be,
But not so deep as in love I am,
I care not whether I sink or swim.

Since my love's dead and gone to rest
I'll think on her who I love best.
I've sewed her up in flannel strong,
Have another now she's dead and gone.

The second one was by James Thomas (1906, Karpeles, No. 35, version B, p. 172; also quoted by Douglas at MDB; Roud ID S164528):

O down in the meadows the other day
A-gathering flowers both rich and gay,
A-gathering flowers both red and blue,
I little thought what love could do.

Where love is planted there do grow,
It buds and blossoms just like some rose,
For it has a sweet and a pleasant smell,
No flower on earth can it excel.

I fetched my back once against an oak,
I thought it had been some trusty tree,
For the first it bent and the next it broke,
So did my love prove false to me.

Must I go bound and she go free?
Must I love one that don't love me?
Why should I act such a childish part
To love a girl that will break my heart? 

A performance by Mrs. Elizabeth Mogg (1904,Karpeles, No. 35, version C, p. 173; also quoted by Allen, p. 165 and Douglas at MDB; Roud ID S164529) was the source for the first and the last verse:

The water is wide and I can't get over
Neither have I got wings to fly.
Go and get me O some little, little boat 
For to carry over my true love and I.

Love is handsome, love is pretty,
Love is charming when it is true;
As it grows older it grows colder
And fades away like the morning dew.

I had two dogs under my father's table.
They do prick their ears when they do hear the horn.
When I'm dead, dear, it will be all over
And I hope my friends will bury me. 

Two years later she sang another version with two different verses (Karpeles, p. 173, also quoted by Allen and Douglas, Roud ID S193858) :

The water is wide and I can't get over
Neither have I got wings to fly.
Go and get me O some little, little boat 
For to carry over my true love and I.

In London city the girls are pretty,
Streets are paved with marble stones.
My true lover the clever a woman
As ever trod on English ground.

I'm often drunk but never sober,
I'm a rover in every degree.
When I'm drinking I'm always a-thinking
How to gain my love's company.

III.

The songs collected from Caroline Cox and James Thomas are not variants of "Waly, Waly", they are clearly abbreviated versions of the broadside ballad "The Unfortunate Swain".  Mrs. Cox used five of the original nine verses - the first, then the seventh, the sixth and the fifth and the last - while Mr. Thomas remembered four of them: the first, the second, the sixth and the third.

Down in a meadow fair and gay 
Plucking a Rose the other day, 
Plucking a Rose both red and blue, 
I little thought what love could do.

Where love is planted, there it grows, 
It buds and blossoms like a rose, 
And has so sweet and pleasant smell,
No power on earth can it excel.

Must I be bound that can go free? 
Must I love one that loves not me? 
Why should I act such a childish part 
To love a girl that will break my neart.

If there's a thousand in the room, 
My true love has the highest bloom, 
Sure she is some chosen one,
I will have her or,I'll have none.

I spy'd a ship sailing in the deep
She sailed as deep as she could swim, 
But not deep as in love I am, 
I care not whether I sink or swim.

I set my foot against an oak
I thought it had been a trusty tree, 
But first it bent and then it broke 
And so did my true love to me.

I put my band into a bush, 
Thinking the sweetest rose to find, 
l prick'd my finger to the bone,
I wish I'd left that rose behind.

If roses are such prickly flowers,
They should be gathered while they are green,
And he that loves an unkind maid, 
I'm sure he strives against the stream.

When my love is dead and at her rest
I'll think of her whom I love best 
To wrap her up in linen strong
I'll think of her when dead and gone 

The text was first printed without this title in 1750 in Newcastle on a broadside sheet:

• Two excellent new songs. I. A new love song. II. Newcastle ale (Roxburghe Ballads III.421, available at the  English Broadside Ballad Archive). 

Circa 1770 it was included in The Merry Songster (No. 14, ESTC T039283) and according to COPAC the song was also published in 1770?, 1780? (ESTC T010507, see also Harding B22(312), undated, in the allegro Catalogue that has the same image), 1790? (ESTC T050423, all three available at ECCO), 1800?,1802, 1805, 1807, 1810?, 181-?, 1815 and 1813-20. A variant - or better a rip-off - called "Picking Lilies" was published circa 1782 (reprinted in Logan 1869, p. 336). 

The writer of "The Unfortunate Swain" used only one verse we know from "Waly, Waly" ("I set my foot against an oak..."). Although it was advertised as a "new song" it's in fact partly a compilation of verses from older broadsides. Two can be found in Martin Parker's "The Distressed Virgin" (first printed 1633; see Douce Ballads 1(95a), between 1663 and 1674 and Pepys 3.313, ca. 1678-80) :

I put my finger in the bush,
thinking the sweetest Rose to find,
I prickt my finger to the bone,
but yet I left the Rose behind;

If Roses be such prickling flowers
they must be gathered while they be green
And she that loves an unkind love,
Alas, she rowes against the streame.

Another verse is very similar to one in "The Seamans leave taken of his sweetest Margery" (Pepys 4.158, printed ca. 1681-84; thanks to Bruce Olson at the MDB, who dates it as ca. 1660), a song that also - as already noted - shares a verse with "Waly, Waly":

I have seven ships upon the sea,
and all are laden to the brim;
I am so inflam'd with love to thee,
I care not whether I sink or swim. 

"Arthur's Seat Shall Be My Bed, or: Love in Despair" (ca. 1701, see NLS: The Word On The Street) - a song using four verses known from Ramsay's "Waly, Waly" - could have also been an inspiration to the writer of this "new love song":

Should I be bound that may go free?
should I Love them that Loves not me?
I'le rather travel into Spain,
where I'le get love for love again;

"The Unfortunate Swain" must have been very popular for quite a long time. Already in 1803 a fragmentary version consisting of only three verses but including the melody was published by James Johnson in the sixth volume of his Scots Musical Museum. He had taken it down from the singing of his father ("In Yon Garden", p. 582, Glen, Early Scottish Melodies, 1900, p. 232; see Allen, p. 162). 

In 1867 a reader sent in four verses to the magazine Notes And Queries (3rd Ser., Vol. 11, p. 441) and noted that it was "a fragment of a song frequently sung by the Newcastle pitmen". In fact three of them are variants of verses 5, 6 and 7 from the broadside text while the fourth is partly related to another verse from "Waly, Waly". It's not unreasonable to assume that this fragment was a relic of a local "Folk"-version of this song. 

William Christie's Traditional Ballad Airs, Vol. 1 (1881, p. 226) includes a song called "The Prickly Rose" that was compiled from two Scottish variants of "The Unfortunate Swain". One was "sent to the Editor [Christie] in 1850 by a native of Buchan", the other from an "old woman in Buckie [...] She died in the year 1866 at the age of nearly 80 years. Her father [...] had the sobriquet 'Meesic' [...] indicating his fame as a ballad-singer" (dto. p. 42):

Down in yon meadow fresh and gay,
I was pulling flowers the other day;
I was pulling flowers both red and blue,
But I little knew what love could do.

For there love's planted, and there it grows,
It buds and blooms like any rose,
It has such a sweet and a pleasant smell,
That nought on earth can it excel.

I put my band into a bush,
Thinking a sweet rose there to find ;
But prick'd my fingers to the bone,
And left the sweetest rose behind.

If roses be such prickly flowers,
They should be pull'd when they are green;
So he that finds an inconstant love,
l'm sure he strives against the stream.

I see a ship sailing on the sea,
As heavy laden'd as she can be;
But she's not so deep, as in love I am,—
What is't to me though she sink or swim ?

Must I go bound, and she go free ?
Must I love one that loves not me ?
Why should I act such a childish part,
As to love a fair one that breaks my heart ?

'Mong thousand thousands in a room, 
My love does carry the highest bloom ; 
She surely is my chosen one, 
And I shall wed her or eise wed none. 

Though she were dead and at her rest,
I would think on her whom I love best, 
I would wrap her up in my memory strong. 
And still think on her when she's dead and gone. 

Sabine Baring-Gould "collected three variants in Devon and Cornwall between 1889 and 1891" from which he collated the text of "Deep In Love"  published in 1891 in his Songs And Ballads Of The West. In his manuscript he quotes the related verses from "Waly, Waly", "Picking Lilies", "The Distressed Virgin" and Johnson's "Down In Yon Meadow" and also mentions "The Unfortunate Swain". One fragment was from "Mary Sacherley, aged 75 [...] daughter of an old singing moor man", a "famous singer on Dartmoor":

Shall I be bound, & she be free?
Shall I love one that loves not me?
Shall I play such a childish part?
For woman’s love to break my heart?

Ten thousand lovers in the room,
But my true love’s the fairest bloom.
I’m sure she is the fairest one
I will have her, or else have none.

I saw a ship come sailing by,
As heavily laden as she might be.
But not so deep in love as I.
I care not if I sink or swim.

Down in a meadow ‘t other day
I thought a lovely rose to find,
I pricked my finger to the bone
And left my lovely rose behind.

Down in a meadow t’other day
A plucking flowers red and blue,
I wandered doleful on my way,
And little thought what love can do.

The second one with only three badly remembered verses was recorded from an informant whose "grandmother sang it to him in 1825":

In the meadow t’other day
Plucking flowers both fine & gay
Plucking flowers red, white & blue
I little thought what love could do.

Where love is planted there it grows
It buds and blossoms like a rose
It bears a sweet & pleasant smell
There’s not a flower can it excell.

Ten thousand ladies in the room
My love she is the fairest bloom
[...]
I said I would have her or none.

The third was sent to him by a correspondent from Cornwall. She had "heard it sung by an old Cornish parson [...] who had picked it up from an old fellow in his parish". It consists  of the same four verses as the version from Newcastle published in Notes And Queries in 1867, that means including the additional one starting with "I wish, I wish in vain [...]. I really wonder why this particular variant was only found in the Southwest and the Northeast of England and nowhere in between (Allen, p. 162, 170; Baring-Gould 1891, p. xxxviii, p. 184/5; Baring-Gould, Ms. Vol. 1, p. 178, No. 86, pdf with transcription from the website Songs Of The West). 

George Butterworth recorded two texts with four respectively eight of the original verses - one from some time between 1907 and 1911, the other undated - that are clearly derived from that broadside (GB/4/59 and GB/5/24 on the Take Six Homepage of the EFDSS) although he obviously regarded them as variants of "Waly, Waly".  In 1909 Herbert Hughes  found two verses in Ireland  that look like a mutilated fragment of "The Unfortunate Swain" (quoted from the Mudcat Discussion Board, first published in Hughes, Irish Country Songs, Vol. 1, 1909):

Must I go bound and you go free, 
Must I love the lass who wouldn't love me, 
Was e'er I taught so poor a wit, 
As to love the lass would break my heart.

I put my finger to the bush, 
To pluck the fairest rose, 
I pricked my finger to the bone, 
Ah, but then I left the rose behind. 

The same can be said about the two verses collected by Cecil Sharp from Jane Gentry in 1916 in North Carolina (Smith 1998, p. 157):

As I walked out one morning in May,
A-gathering flowers all so gay,
I gathered white and I gathered blue,
But little did I know what love can do.

Seven ships on the sea,
Heavy loaded as they can be,
Deep in love as I have been,
But little do I care if they sink or swim.

These fragmentary versions have a combination of verses that is - to my knowledge -  only known from that particular broadside ballad. Of course it's not exactly the same, but it seems to me that the informants couldn't remember much from the original text. I only wonder why Ms. Gentry reintroduced the "seven ships" from "The Seamans leave...". 

IV.

Elizabeth Mogg's song is a fragment of another older broadside ballad called "I'm Often Drunk And Seldom Sober". The exact date of this broadside's first publication is unclear (Harding B 25(894), between 1780 and 1830; Harding B 17(136b), between 1780 and 1812). For a second edition (Harding B28(63), 1820-24 and Harding B 25(893)) the first and the third verse were deleted and the text was slightly edited. . The earliest date for this second version starting with "The sea is wide..." seems to be 1790.  The variations of the longer text are in brackets:

[Many cold winters nights I've travelled,
Until my locks were wet with dew,
And don't you think that I am to blame,
For changing old love for new]

(Chorus)
I'm often drunk and seldom sober,
I am a rover in every degree;
When I'm drinking I'm often thinking
How shall I gain my love's company.

The sea is wide [seas are deep] and I can't get over [cannot wade them] 
Neither have I got wings to fly,
And come and fetch me [I wish I had] some little boat
To carry over my love and I.

[I lean'd my back against an oak,
Thinking it had been some trusty tree;
At first it bent and then it broke 
And so my false lover proved to me.]

In London City the girls are pretty,
The streets are paved with marble stones,
And my love she is as clever a woman
As ever trod upon English ground

I wish I was in Dublin city,
As far as e'er my eye could see,
Or else across the briny ocean,
Where there is no lawyers that [no false love] can follow me.

If love is handsome, and love is pretty,
And love is charming while its new,
So as love grows older it grows colder [bolder],
But fades away like the morning dew.

I laid my head on a cask of brandy,
It was my fancy I declare;
For when I'm drinking I'm always thinking
How I shall gain my love's company.

There is two nags in my fathers stable, 
They prick their ears when they hear the hound;
And my true love is as clever a young man [women]
As ever trod on England's ground

You silly sportsmen leave off your coursing [courting],
I'll say no more till I have drank,
For when I'm dead it will be all over,
I hope my friends will bury me

This song includes two verses known from "Waly, Waly". Just like the anonymous creator of "The Unfortunate Swain" this writer also borrowed the one about the "trusty tree" that was dropped for later editions.

The sixth verse - "Love is handsome..." -  is a variant of the first half of the second verse in Ramsay's "Waly, Waly, Gin Love Be Bonny". Mrs. Mogg used it in her first performance and  "its occurence [...] probably led Sharp to believe that the song was really 'O Waly Waly' badly remembered" (Allen, p. 165). 

This may be the reason that he also used her first verse ("The water is wide..."). It fit well into the song he was constructing and maybe he thought it was an otherwise lost part of an older oral variant of "Waly, Waly". But in fact it had never been part of the earlier versions of that song. 

The line "the water is wide"  as used since Sharp definitely derives from Mrs. Mogg, it was her own variation of "the sea is wide" from from the second edition of "I'm Often Drunk". To my knowledge a verse like this hasn't been part of any song written before that broadside ballad. Lines 3 and 4 have been heavily edited by Sharp himself for the version published in 1906 Folk Songs From Somerset. He changed it from:

[...]
Go and get me O some little, little boat 
For to carry over my true love and I.

to:

[...]
Give me a boat that can carry two,
And both shall row, my love and I.

Interestingly he reinstated Mrs. Mogg's original lines for the text oublished in One Hundred Folksongs.  

Variants of this verse were occasionally used in other songs but none of them predates the first broadside of "I'm Often Drunk" that was printed some time between 1780 and 1812. It has been adapted for example for the Irish song "Young Sick Lover" - printed in Cork ca. 1830-40 - and it's modern version "Carrickfergus" (see Digital Tradition Database and the long discussion at the Mudcat Board, text quoted by John Moulden). In this case it's surely borrowed from "I'm Often Drunk" because here we also find a line from that song's refrain as well as the phrase "marble stones":

[...]
The seas are deep, and I can't swim over,
No nor neither have I wings to fly,
I wish I met with some handsome boatman,
To ferry over my love and I.

And its Kilkenny it is supposed,
Where the marble stones are as black as ink;
[...]
I am always drunk, and seldom sober,
Constantly roving from town to town; 

Interestingly this verse has even migrated to the USA on its own. In 1880 American songwriter Ned Straight published "Sweet Maggie Gordon" (see the sheet music).  A song called  "Peggy Gordon" with the first line "Sweet Peggy Gordon, you are my darling"  was printed on songsheets  in the 1820s (available at the libraries of Brown University, RI and The New York Historical Society) but also in Everybody's Songster (1859, Roud ID 187124) and the Old Armchair Songster (1860, Roud ID S302091). I haven't been able to check these publications and can't say if it's the same text. But the writer of the lyrics used by Straight - whoever it was - must have known "I'm Often Drunk" as his three verses are clearly derived from the first edition of the British broadside:

I wish my love and I were sailing,
As far from land as far can be,
Far, far across the deep blue water,
Where I'd have none to trouble me.

[Refrain]:
Sweet Maggie Gordon you are my bride,
Come sit you down upon my knee,
And tell to me the very reason,
Why I am slighted thus by me.

The sea is deep, I can't swim over,
Neither have I the wings to fly,
But I will hire some jolly sportsman,
To carry o'er my love and I.

I wish I had a glass of Brandy,
The reason I will tell to thee,
Because when drinking I am thinking,
Does my true love remember me.

A version from West Virgina with more or less the same words was collected by J. H. Cox in 1918  ("Maggie Goddon", Cox, p. 424, "learned forty years ago"). Variants called "Peggy Gordon" with more and different verses were recorded in Canada since 1943 (Roud # 2280; see the versions on Alan Mills and Jean Carignan, Songs, Fiddle Tunes and a Folk-Tale from Canada, Folkways FW 03532, 1961 and Maritime Folk Songs: from the Collection of Helen Creighton, Folkways FW 04307). 

But this verse is also part of a song  called "The Ripest Of Apples" that was collected in Portland, Maine in 1900 (quoted by Bruce Olson at the Mudcat Discussion board, for an Irish version, 1936, see Henry, Songs of the People, p. 383): 

O the ripest of apples, they must soon grow rotten,
And the warmest of love, it must soon grow cold;
And young men's vows they must soon be forgotten,
Look out pretty maiden, that you don't get controlled.

The seas they are deep, and I cannot wade them,
Neither have I the wings to fly.
But I wish I could find some jolly, jolly boatsman,
To ferry me over, My love and I.

O I wish that me and my love was a sailin'
As far as the eye could discern from the shore.
A sailin' so far across the blue ocean,
Where no cares nor troubles wouldn't bother us no more.

This is a fragmentary version of the earlier and longer variant of "I'm Often Drunk": it still uses the phrase "I cannot wade them" instead of "can't get over".  It's not unreasonable to assume that the first verse about "the ripest of apples" was developed from or inspired by the verse starting with "If love is handsome [...]" in "I'm Often Drunk", the one borrowed from "Waly, Waly". Both are about love growing cold with the time and offer a similar message although the new variant sounds a little more drastic. 

V.

The "ripest of apples" has occasionally infiltrated other songs (see f. ex. Brown 1952, Vol. 2, p. 428, Cox, p. 466, Emrich, p. 530) but the original verse as used in "I'm Often Drunk" has also started a life of its own: 

If love is handsome, and love is pretty,
And love is charming while it's new,
But as love grows older it grows much colder 
But fades away like the morning dew.

For example it was turned into the refrain in a "simple ditty with a pleasant air" called "Love It Is Easing" , found by British Folkore collector Alfred Williams  in Wiltshire County (MS collection No Wt 496, undated, before 1914):  

When I was young and well beloved,
‘Twas by a man of this country,
He courted me both late and early,
While he gained his free will of me.

[Chorus]:
Oh, love it is easing, and love it is teasing,
Love is a pleasure while it is new;
But when it grows older it still grows colder,
And fades away like the morning dew.

I never thought he was going to leave me,
Until one day as he came in;
He threw himself down and began to tell me,
And then my troubles they did begin.

I left my father, I left my mother,
I left my brothers and sisters too;
I left my home and my relations,
I left them all for the sake of you.

Adieu, adieu, to all false lovers,
Adieu, adieu unto my dear;
You’re like a star on a winter’s morning,
You’re far away when you ought to be near. 

Other versions were collected by H. E. D. Hammond in Somerset in 1905 ("Love It Is Pleasing", HAM/2/1/23) and by Charles Gardiner in Hampshire in 1907 ("Love Is Teasing", GG/1/16/1002, both at the Take Six Archive of the EFDSS). Interestingly most of the rest of the text is derived  from another old broadside called "The Wheels of Fortune" (Mu23-y1:104 and Mu23-y1:105 at Glasgow Broadside Ballads and Firth c.18(132) in the allegro Catalogue of Ballads, all undated, see also the version in Christie, Vol. 1, p. 260). On the British broadside sheet this song  is combined with "The Green Willow" that includes another variant of  this verse:

You false-hearted young men you know you have deceived me,
You false-hearted young men you have caused me to rue,
My love it does grow older but never will grow colder,
I wish 'twould fade away like the sweet morning dew.

Completely different is a male lament from West Virginia called "Youth And Folly". This is a unique potpourri of verses, one is for example derived from "Sweet Maggie Gordon", another one from "Young Riley" (1916, Cox, p. 422). The informant had "learned it from his father":

Youth and folly make youngsters marry, 
And when they're married they must obey;
For many a bright and sunshiny morning
Has turned to a dark and rainy day.

O love is warming, O love is charming,
Love's quite handsome while it's new!
But as love grows older, love grows colder,
And fades away like the morning dew.

It was all in the sweet month of April,
While summer flowers were in their bloom,
Trees were budding, sweet birds were singing;
Times ain't with me as they have been.

Great Jehovah, have mercy on me!
My comrades, come to set me free;
I never courted but one fair lady;
Her name was Polly, she told me.

Polly, O Polly, you are my darling!
Come set yourself down awhile by me,
And tell me the very reason
Why I was slighted so by thee.

I am in love, I dare not own it,
The very pain lies on my breast;
I am in love, and the whole world knows it,
That a troubled mind can find no rest.

I wish to God I never had seen you,
Or in my cradle I had died;
To think as nice a young man as I am
Should be in love and be denied.

I wish I was on some stormy ocean,
As far from land as I could be;
And sailing for some better country
Where there no grief could trouble me.

Folklorists in the USA have found a lot of variants of a song usually called "Fair And Tender Ladies" or "Little Sparrow" (Roud # 451, see f. ex. Campbell & Sharp 1917, No. 65, p. 220-222 and M. E. Henry 1938, p. 257-260). This is a very flexible and unstable mixture of verses from many different sources. I presume there are no two versions alike and some of them include this verse, for example this text from North Carolina from the "first decade of the present century" (Brown 1952, Vol. 3, p. 291, version B):

Come all ye fair and tender ladies,
Be careful how you court young men.
They're like bright stars in a summer morning,
They first are here and then they're gone.

They'll tell to yon some tender story,
Declare to you that they are true.
Then straightaway go and court some other.
And that's the love they have for you.

Oh. love is sweet and love is charming
And love is pleasant when it's new.
But love grows cold as love grows older,
And fades away like the mountain dew.

I wish that I'd a never seen him.
Or that I'd died when I was young.
To think a fair and handsome lady
Was stricken by his lying tongue

I wish I was a little sparrow,
Had wings, and oh ! could fly so high.
I'd fly away to my false lover
And when he'd ask, I would deny.

Alas, I am no little sparrow.
No wings, and cannot fly so high.
I'll sit me down in grief and sorrow
And try to pass my trouble by.

Other versions with this particular verse were collected by John H. Cox (p. 419/20). Interestingly his version B includes the phrase "marble stones" known from the broadside of "I'm Often Drunk": 

[...]
I wish I were on some tall mountain,
Where the marble stones are black as ink;
I'd write a letter to my false lover,
Whose cheeks are like the morning pink

But here the stones are "black as ink" and that phrase is also in his version A, but without the "marble stones". The expression "black as ink" can be found in the Irish broadside "Young Sick Lover", in Canadian versions of "Peggy Gordon", in a Pennsylvanian variant  called "Katie Morgan" (at the Digital Tradition Database, no source or date) and in related song from New York (Thompson 1939, p. 260/1). All have lines, verses and motifs from both "I'm Often Drunk" and "Sweet Maggie Gordon" but there is at least one text missing - maybe a broadside from Britain or an early printed version of "Peggy Gordon" - that would help to explain the dissemination of this particular phrase. 

It would also be worth discussing if the verse about the "little sparrow" is in some way related to the one starting with "the seas are deep" from "I'm Often Drunk". Both share the second line, here in the original text:

Neither have I got wings to fly

This is very similar to "No wings, and cannot fly so high" in Brown's text quoted above, to "Nor have I any wings to fly" (M. H. Henry, version B, p. 258) or to "Got no wings, nor I can't fly" (Sharp, version B, p. 221). Maybe this line was the starting-point for the development of the key verses  of "Little Sparrow". 

Some time in the 1940s Jean Ritchie learned a little song from an "Irish girl" (Ritchie, p. 24):

Oh, love is a teasin' and love is pleasin'
And love's a pleasure when first it's new.
But as love grows older it still grows colder,
And fades away like the morning dew.

Come all ye fair maids, now take a warnin',
Don't never heed what a young man say.
He's like a star on some foggy mornin'
When you think he's near, he is far away.

I left my father, I left my Mother,
I left my brothers and sisters, too.
I left my friends and my fond dwellin',
My dear young man for the sake of you.

Oh, love is a teasin' and love is pleasin'
And love's a pleasure when first it's new.
But as love grows older it still grows colder,
And fades away like the morning dew.

She regarded this song as an "enchanting version of 'Waly, Waly'" but in fact it looks more like a fragment of "Love It Is Easin'/Pleasin'/Teasin'" as collected in Britain by Williams, Hammond and Gardiner. Variants of the second verse - "Come all ye fair maids, now take a warnin [...]'" - are of course also known from the American song "Fair And Tender Ladies".

In 1960 Alan Lomax published a slightly different version called "Love Is Pleasin'" in his Folk Songs of North America (p. 70):

Oh, love is a pleasin' and love is teasin'
And love's a pleasure when first it is new.
But as love grows older, at length (sic!) grows colder,
And fades away like the morning dew.

I left my mother, I left my father,
I left my brother and my sisters, too.
I left my friends and my kind relations,
I left them all for the love of you.

If I'd a-knowed before I courted,
That love had-a been such a killin' crime,
I'd a-locked my hear in a box of gold,
And tied it up with a silver twine.

Oh, love is a pleasin' and love is teasin'
And love's a pleasure when first it is new.
But as love grows older, at length (sic!) grows colder,
And fades away like the morning dew.

The new third verse - I don't know if it was inserted by Lomax himself or  by Jean Ritchie - is of course well-known from "Waly, Waly" and maybe even older. At least it had been used in the broadside ballad "The Seamans leave taken of his sweetest Margery" (Pepys 4.158, printed ca. 1681-84) long before "Waly, Waly" was published for the very first time:

But had I wist before I kiss't 
That love had been sae ill to win, 
I'd lock'd my heart in a case of gold, 
And pinn'd it wi' a silver pin.

A different version of this verse is part of at least two variants of "The Unfortunate Swain" from oral tradition that I have already mentioned: one from Cornwall (Baring-Gould, Ms. Vol. 1, p. 178, No. 86, version A; pdf c/o Songs Of The West) and the other a fragment from Newcastle (Notes And Queries, 3rd Ser., Vol. 11, 1867, p. 441):  

I wish, I wish, but 'tis all in vain -
I wish I had my heart back again;
I'd lock it up in a silver box,
And fasten it with a golden chain.

It was also included in many variants of "Fair And Tender Ladies"/"Little Sparrow". Both Ritchie (p. 18) and Lomax (p. 205) have published a version in their collections as have for example Cecil Sharp (No. 65, version B, p. 221), Mellinger E. Henry (p. 257-260, version A, C, D) and Frank C. Brown (Vol. 3, No. 254, p. 290-293, version A & C). Here's Brown's version A "as sung by a woman in 1907":  

Come all ye fairer tender ladies,
Take warning how you love young men;
For they're like a star in the summer morning.
They are here but soon are gone again.

For once I had an untrue lover
Which I claimed to be my own.
He went right away and loved another,
Leaving me to weep alone.

If I had known before I loved him
That his love was false to me
T would have locked my heart with a key of golden
And pinned it there with a silver pin.

Oh, if I were a little sparrow
And I had wings to fly,
I'd fy right away to my true love's window,
I'd listen what he told.

But then as it is I'm no little sparrow.
Neither have I wings to Hy.
So I'll sit right down in my grief and sorrow,
I'll sit here till I die. 

Of course all these verses are interchangeable, they all fit well  into this kind of laments of lost love. I presume Lomax - like Sharp  with his composite text - tried to "reconstruct" a Folk version of  "Waly, Waly". But the addition of this verse makes sense for another  reason because it was also part of the broadside song "Wheel Of Fortune" that had been the major source for the British "Love It Is  Easin'/Pleasin'/Teasin'" (text from Firth c.18(132)):

When I was young I was much beloved 
By all the young men in the country ; 
When I was blooming all in my blossom, 
A false young lover deceived me.

He has tried his whole endeavor,
He has tried all his power and skill, 
He has spoiled all my good behaviour,
He has brken my fortune against my will.

I did not think he was going to leave me, 
Till the next morning when he came in;
Then he sat down and began a-talking, 
Then all my sorrows did begin.

I left my father, I left my mother;
I left my sister and brothers too; 
And all my friends and old aquaintance,
I left them all to go with you.

But turn you round, you wheel of fortune, 
It's turn you round and smile on me;
For young men's words they are quite uncertain, 
Which sad experience teaches me..

If I had known before I had courted,
That love had been so ill to win, 
I wad locked my heart in a chest of gold,
And pon'd it with a silver pin.

Then fare-ye-weel, ye false-hearted young man,
It's fare-ye-weel, since we must part;
If you are the man that has broke my fortune, 
You're not the man that shall break my heart.

Of all the flowers that grow in the garden,
Be sure you pull the rose and thyme, 
For all others are quite out of fashion,
A false young man he has stole my thyme.

But time will toon put an end to all things, 
And love will soon put an end to me;
But surely there is a place of torment, 
To punish my lover for slighting me.

I'm not sure how popular this broadside was, I only know of only know of one English and two Scottish prints. But at least one American variant of "Little Sparrow/Fair And Tender Ladies" quotes extensively from this song (M. H. Henry, p. 261).  This is another case where the broadside served as a conduit for the survival of this old verse. It's not so much the songs themselves but single verses that are transmitted through the centuries by both printed matter and oral tradition. But without the broadsides they surely wouldn't have  survived. Lomax' "Love Is pleasin'" is not so much a "Folk"-version of "Waly, Waly" but a fragment of the broadside song "The Wheel Of Fortune". 

VI.

Another ancient verse recycled in Sharp's "Waly, Waly"- the third from "The Unfortunate Swain" - has also taken on a life of its own:

Must I be bound that can go free? 
Must I love one that loves not me? 
Why should I act such a childish part 
To love a girl that will break my neart.

It was not part of the original "Oh Waly, Waly, Gin Love Be Bonny" as published by Ramsay. Of course this verse had been inspired by another  older song - see "Arthur's Seat Shall Be My Bed, or: Love in Despair", available at NLS: The Word On The Street and in Child, p. 105 - but the phrase "act such a childish part" seems to have been introduced by the broadside. I know of no earlier occurence.

Circa 1795 a broadside sheet was published called "The Complaining Lover - A New Song" (Roud ID S201941). The first line is "Must I be bound that can go free," but I haven't seen it so I can't say how similar it is to "The Unfortunate Swain". In 1905 Folklore collector H. E. D. Hammond heard a song from Jacob Baker in Dorset (Purslow, p. 23; also in Journal of the Folk-Song Society, Vol. 7, No. 23, 1923, available at jstor). The opening verse is:

Must I be bound, or must I go free?
To love a young man who never loved me?
Why should I act such a childish part.
To love a young man with all my heart

Four of the other verses are also clearly derived from "The Unfortunate Swain", three are from different sources.  Sam Henry's Songs Of The People (Huntington 1990, p. 386 ) includes a complete song from 1928 called "Must I Go Bound"  (with versions for the girl and the lad, c/o MDB) that also opens with this verse but none of the others are in any way related to those known from the old broadside. In this case it has become the starting-point for a new song and has lost all connections to the original ballad. 

This verse and especially the the expression "the childish part" showed considerable persistence, it has also been adaptad in the USA for different kind of songs. "The Man That Wouldn't Hoe Corn" in Louise Pound's American Ballads And Songs (1922, p. 110/11, p. 249; a variant of this song called "The Lazy Man" without this particular verse is available in the Journal of American Folklore 29, 1916, p. 181/2) - collected 1914 in Nebraska -  shows a quasi-feminist approach:

"I won't be bound, I will be free,
I won't marry a man that don't love me.
Neither will I act the childish part
And marry a man that will break my heart".

In the same collection is a version of "My Blue-eyed Boy"  (p. 212) from Nebraska (ca. 1905) that also includes this verse. This song has "one of those Protean folk-lyrics whose identity is hard to fix because they shift from text to text, taking on new elements and dropping old ones from the general reservoir of the folk fancy" (Brown 1952, Vol. 3, p. 298). Other "Blue-Eyed Boys" are very different from Pound's but  they retain this particular verse (see for example Brown 1952, dto.; Brewster 1940, p. 85; two more or less fragmentary texts collected by Vance Randolph quoted at the Mudcat Discussion Board). 

"Bring Me Back My Blue-Eyed Boy" in Carl Sandburg's American Songbag (1927, p. 324) looks more like a version of "The Butcher Boy" while "Brisk Young Lover" as sung by Jane Gentry in 1916 for Cecil Sharp  (Hicks, p. 175, the melody is also in Sharp 1917, p. 287) is "The Butcher Boy" with a mutilated variant of  this verse - without the "childish part" - added at the end of the song.

In 1954 American American Folk singer Susan Reed recorded a short song called "Must I Go Bound" for her 10-inch LP Old Airs From Ireland, Scotland and England (Elektra EKL 26, available at amazon.co.uk). In fact this is a slightly edited version of the two-verse fragment of "The Unfortunate Swain" collected by Herbert Hughes and published in his Irish Country Songs, Vol. 1 (1909):

Must I go bound and you go free
Must I love a lad who doesn't love me
Must I be born with a so little heart
As to love a one would break my heart

I put my finger into the bush
To pluck a rose as fair as thyme
The thorn it pierced me at a touch
And so I left the rose behind

Must I go bound and you go free
Must I love a lad who doesn't love me
Must I be born with a so little heart
As to love a one would break my heart

In 1965 Buffy St. Marie recorded a much longer version of "Must I Go Bound" (at the moment available at YouTube) for her LP Many A Mile:

Must I go bound and you so free
Must I love one who doesn't love me
Must I be born with so little art
As to love a one would break my heart

I put my finger into the bush
I thought I'd find a lovely flower
The thorn it pierced me to a touch
And so I left the rose behind

I leaned my back up against some oak
I thought it was a trusty tree
But first it bended and then it broke
And so did my false love to me

Must I go bound and you so free
Must I love one who doesn't love me
Must I be born with so little art
As to love a one would break my heart

There is a ship that's sails the sea
It's loaded down as deep can be
But not so deep as the love I'm in
I know not there if I sink or swim

Oh love be gentle and love be kind
Gay as a jewel when first it is new
But love grows old and than grows cold
And fades away like the morning dew

Must I go bound and you so free
Must I love one who doesn't love me
Must I be born with so little art
As to love a one would break my heart

This version has been filled up with some verses from Pete Seeger’s "The Water Is Wide" as sung by Pete Seeger. That means that the fragment collected by Mr. Hughes in Ireland was complemented with some of the missing parts from just the right song. Both are derived from "The Unfortunate Swain" and both share one verse from the original broadside text as Seeger's edited version Sharp's "Waly, Waly" still  includes these lines:

I put my hand into some soft bush,
Thinking the sweetest flower to find.
I pricked my finger to the bone,
And left the sweetest flower alone .

"Must I Go Bound" is in fact "The Water Is Wide" with a different melody and without the first verse which is replaced by the one starting with "Must I go bound [...]". Both songs are modern variants of the same ancient broadside ballad with a little input from another old songsheet. They have reached us on different transmission routes, but their trip was very similar: first was the broadside with scattered verses from older songs, then the "Folk" that remembered these texts for a couple of decades, then the Folklore collectors who saved these verses from oblivion by writing them down and publishing their findings in books and then at last the Folk Revival singers who used them for new "old" songs.

VII.

Now there's one problem left: where is the melody from? Cecil Sharp used the one he had heard from Caroline Cox in 1905 (Allen, p. 163, Karpeles, p. 171):  

Unfortunately it is not known where she had learned this particular tune and to my knowledge it hasn't been found elsewhere. It's in no way similar to any of the melodies published with the other "Folk"-variants of that song by James Johnson in The Scots Musical Museum, Vol. 6 ("Down In Yon Garden"), William Christie in Traditional Ballad Airs, Vol. 1 ("The Prickly Rose") and Sabine Baring-Gould in Songs And Ballads of The West ("Deep In Love") nor do we know the one originally used with this broadside ballad.   

J. W. Allen (p. 163, 171) notes that "a similar tune to this occurs in a version of 'Lord Thomas and Fair Ellinor" and again in a version of [...] 'Young Hunting', from the Appalachians", all collected by Cecil Sharp in 1916. I couldn't check the latter because he refers to a version H that is not included in the first edition of The English Folk Songs From The Southern Appalachians. In fact the melodies of versions A and C - and D  should be included, too -  of "Lord Thomas" (Sharp 1917, p. 55, 58, 59) are partly related to the one sung by Mrs. Cox. But it's only the musical phrase in first two bars that is similar while the rest of the song is very different:

Allen (p. 164) also claims that the tune of "Deep In Love"  as collected by H.E.D. Hammond in Dorset (Purslow, p. 23; also in Journal of the Folk-Song Society, Vol. 7, No. 23, 1923, available at jstor) "is very similar to that printed and published by Sharp [...] we may say that, this tune, in its various forms, is the one proper to the song 'Down In The Meadows'" (i. e. "The Unfortunate Swain"). I must admit I can't hear  musical similarities. To my ears both melodies are quite different from each other. 

Nor do I think that it could be in any way related to the original melody of broadside song because this variant was collected more than 150 years after the first publication of "The Unfortunate Swain". I have serious doubts if it's possible for a melody to be associated with this particular song for such a long time. The ballad was disseminated by broadside sheets with only the text. The people had to use other tunes if they wanted to sing it and that's the reason every collector found very different ones applied to all the versions of this song recorded from oral tradition.

In the end this leaves two possibilities. Either Mrs. Cox has created the melody all by herself and the similarity to the first two bars of "Lord Thomas" from the Appalachians is purely accidentally. Or else this tune is from a different genre, maybe from a hymn learned in school or in the church - and I think it has a hymn-like quality - or maybe a from popular song from the 19th century. But that's of course speculation and I wonder if this question will ever be answered.

VIII.

Cecil Sharp's "Waly, Waly" as published in Folk Songs of Somerset in 1906 is definitely the starting-point for the development of the modern "The Water Is Wide". There is no use looking for an "older" version from "Folk" tradition because there has never existed one. It is in effect a new song constructed from relics of two popular songs that had been published on broadsides more than a hundred years before Sharp wrote down these fragments.

It seems that he tried to put together a "Folk"-version of "Waly, Waly" but the only connection to that old Scottish ballad was that the creators of the two broadside texts themselves had cribbed one respectively two verses from that song. Interestingly Sharp's methods were strikingly similar to those of the writers of "The Unfortunate Swain" and other broadsides. They   compiled their songs from verses borrowed from different texts and claimed it was "new" while Folklorists like Sharp or also Alan Lomax did exactly the same but they claimed it was an "old" song. In fact both were only half right.   

It seems that especially the verses associated with "Waly, Waly" have been very popular among the producers of broadsides. Two songs published circa 1780 demonstrate the same technique. "Forsaken Lover. Tune Farewel You Flower Of False Deceit" (ca. 1780, ESTC T040047) shares three verses with "The Unfortunate Swain" and includes variant versions of two more known from "Waly, Waly". The writer of  "The Effects of Love. A new Song" (ca. 1780, ESTC T032452, both available at ECCO; see pdf-file with the texts) used the same two verses and edited them in a different way to make them fit into his "new" song. But these two and one more line are also related to "Arthur's Seat Shall Be My Bed" (ca. 1701, available at NLS: The Word On The Street), another one from this family. 

The original verses from "Waly, Waly" and "Arthur's Seat..." are:

Oh, oh! if my young babe were born, 
And set upon the nurse's knee, 
And I myself were dead and gane, 
For a maid again I'll never be.

Martinmas wind, when wilt thou blaw, 
And shake the green leaves off the tree?
O gentle death, when wilt thou come?
For of my life I am weary.

For "The Effects of Love" the nurse was replaced by the "daddy" and the last two lines have been changed, too. The other verse is more or less identical to the original:

I wish that my dear babe was born,’
And dandled on his daddy's knee,
And in the cold grave did lie,
And the green grass grew over me.

Ye Christmas winds when will ye blow,
And blow the green leafs off the tree?
O, gentle death when you call,
For of my life I'm quite weary.

"Forsaken Love" also includes the "daddy" and the second half has been varied in a different way while the last line has been transferred to the other verse.

I wish to Christ my babe was born,
And smiling in its daddy's arms,
I myself wrapt up in clay,
Then should I be free from all harm.

What makes the Western winds to blow, 
to blow the green leaves from the tree?
Come death, come death, and end my woe,
For a maiden more, love, I ne'er can be. 

More than a hundred years later Anne Geddes Gilchrist collected in Westmorland a song called "A Brisk Young Sailor Courted Me" (AGG/8/12) which is in fact a potpourri of five verses from different sources - "The Butcher Boy" among them. The fourth looks very familiar:

I wish my baby it was born,
Set smiling on its nurses knee,
And I myself was in my grave
And the green grass growing over me

This is more or less the same as the one from "The Effects Of Love", except that the nurse has been reinstated. I wonder if someone at some point during the pre-history of this particular variant actually knew Ramsay's "Waly, Waly" and changed this line back to its original form.

Then some time between 1907 and 1912 George Butterworth (GB/4/13, both EFDSS archive) found another version of "Brisk Young Sailor" that also included this verse: 

I wish to my heart my babe was born,
Sat smiling on his daddy's knee,
And me myself wrapped in cold clay
And the green grass growing over me.

This is an interesting mixture of lines from both "The Forsaken Lover" and "The Effects Of Love". Two more verses from this text - the second and the third - are clearly derived from the latter. Here is another case where a verse from "Waly, Waly" has survived in "Folk-tradition" because it had been used for broadside ballads. 

"Waly, Waly" was literally broken into pieces by the creators of those broadsides. They systematically plundered Ramsay's text as well as those of other related songs. These verses were spread by "The Unfortunate Swain", "I'm Often Drunk", "The Wheel Of Fortune", "Forsaken Lover", "The Effects Of Love" and therefore the people kept them in their memory. 

When the Folklorists started collecting on the countryside they encountered these relics they knew from "Waly, Waly" just around every corner. But it  seems hat Ramsay's text itself had very little or even no influence on oral tradition even though it had been printed and re-printed so often. Only the broadsides had served as the conduit for these verses' transmission. The collectors found these verses either in fragmentary versions of this particular broadsides or floating through all kinds of different songs. The Folklorists then secured the survival of these verses until today. They were published in academic collections or in songbooks for popular consumption and then were performed, published and recorded by Folk revivalists.

In case of "The Water Is Wide" the route of transmission is easy to follow. At first there are the texts of "Oh Waly, Waly, Gin Love Be Bonny" as published by Allan Ramsay in the 1720s as well as some songs published on broadsides in the 17th century like "The Seaman's Leave...", "Arthur's Seat Shall Be My Bed" and Martin Parker's "Distressed Virgin". Single verses from these texts were then borrowed to be included in "new" songs called "The Unfortunate Swain" and "I'm Often Drunk And Seldom Sober" printed on different broadsides  during the second half of the 18th century. Fragments of these as remembered by Mrs. Cox, Mr. Thomas and Mrs. Mogg from Somerset were written down by Cecil Sharp 1904 - 1906. He then compiled his own new "old" song from those fragments and published it in 1906 in Folk Songs From Somerset and in 1916 in One Hundred Folk Songs as "Oh Waly, Waly".

From Sharp there is a direct trace at first to the world of classical music. Even before Benjamin Britten others had created their own arrangement of Sharp's "Waly, Waly", for example Herbert William Pierce in 1931, Robert Chignell in 1935 or Reginald Redman in 1943.   

Pete Seeger - via his sister Peggy - has adapted the variant originally published in Folk Songs From Somerset although he may have also heard performances of any of the classical arrangements. His slightly edited version was published for example in Sing Out! (Vol. 9, #1, 1959, p.7) and in his songbook  American Favorite Ballads (1961, Oak Publications, p. 77) and he turned it into a Folk Revival standard. 

Roger McGuinn saw "Pete Seeger in concert at Orchestra Hall in Chicago many times in my teen years. His 12-string guitar was always tuned down so that the bass notes were big and round, filling the hall as would a string quartet. His voice was clear, full of emotion and youthful exuberance. That was the first time I heard The Water Is Wide". Guy Carawan recorded it also in 1958 for Folkways (FW03544) and in his liner notes he wrote that Seeger taught it to him while "driving along in a car in upstate New York. But he also reported that he had heard it "later" in London as sung by Shirley Collins. So it seems it was already well-known in Folk Revival circles some years before it was recorded by Pete Seeger in 1958. 

Other early recordings were by Leon Bibb on Sings Love Songs (1960, Vanguard VRS 9073), Carolyn Hester on her second LP in 1961 (Tradition TLP 1043) and Pernell Roberts on Come All Ye Fair And Tender Ladies (1963, see bonanzaworld.net and allmusic.com). Joan Baez included it in 1964 in her Songbook without any credit to Seeger or Sharp. She also performed it in her concerts although to my knowledge she didn't include it on any of her first LPs. A live recording from the early 60s is available Very Early Joan, released in 1982. 

The melody of Bob Dylan's "Lay Down Your Weary Tune" sounds as if it is closely related to the one used for "The Water Is Wide". Dylan later reported that he had "heard a Scottish ballad on an old 78 record that I was trying to really capture the feeling of, that was haunting me [...] It was just a melody (liner notes to Biograph, 1985). Unfortunately it's not known which record he had listened to. 

Sam Hinton's version on "The Wandering Folk Song" (1966, Folkways FW 02401, see the liner notes, p. 2) is one of the few that has been taken directly from Cecil Sharp's One Hundred Folk Songs and in fact he uses a different set of verses. But this was an exception to the rule and  and it seems that nearly everybody has learned "The Water Is Wide" directly or indirectly from Pete Seeger, either from live performances, from him personally, from the recording, or from any of the many printed versions

IX. 

"The Water is Wide" as a song is not that old, this unique combination of verses was compiled in 1906. But the verses themselves are very old and it's fascinating to see that they have survived for so long. The version performed by Dylan and Baez in 1975 - I have quoted this text at the start of this article -  consists of only four verses. The earliest variant of the first one was printed on a broadside as part of the song "I'm Often Drunk And Seldom Sober" in the second half of the 18th century, the second ("There is a ship...") some time between 1660 and 1684 on another broadside called "The Seamans leave taken of his sweetest Margery", the third about the "trusty tree" was included in the two variants of "Waly, Waly" published in the 1720s by Allan Ramsay and William Thomson and the last verse is known from a handwritten addition from the 1620s to an old manuscript and was first printed in 1666 in Thomas Davidson's Cantus, songs, and fancies. 

The oldest has been in use for nearly 400 years  and even the youngest is known for more than two centuries. They have survived for so long because of a complex process involving both written transmission and oral tradition. But it's also interesting to see how these verses have changed over the centuries. The earliest version of the last verse of looks a little different from the one used for "The Water Is Wide": 

Hey trollie lollie, love is jolly
A qhyll qhill it is new;
Qhen it is old, it grows full cold,
Woe worth the love untrue!

According to Robert Chambers (1829, p. 134) "troly, loly" was common as a "burden[...] of songs [...] during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries".  The variant in  Ramsay's "Oh Waly, Waly, Gin Love Be Bonny" from the 1720s is much more similar to the verse as we know it today.

O waly, waly, but love be bonnie, 
A little time while it is new, 
But when 'tis auld it waxes cauld 
And fades away like morning dew. 

For the broadside text of "I'm Often Drunk And Seldom Sober" the words were modernized and all anachronisms were deleted: 

If love is handsome, and love is pretty,
And love is charming while it's new,
But as love grows older it grows much colder 
But fades away like the morning dew.

The verse as remembered by Mrs. Mogg from Somerset in 1904 is nearly identical to the one on the broadside, she only has replaced "new" with "true". 

Love is handsome, love is pretty,
Love is charming when it is true;
As it grows older it grows colder
And fades away like the morning dew.

The version Cecil Sharp published in his Folk Songs From Somerset in 1906 shows some interesting variations and is more similar to Ramsay's verse: "new" is reinstated and "old/cold" replaces "older/colder". Sharp has also changed the last word of the first line from "pretty" to "fine" and the start of the second line from "love is charming" to "love's a jewel”

O, love is handsome and love is fine, 
And love's a jewel while it is new, 
But when it is old, it groweth cold 
And fades away like morning dew.

Pete Seeger's version (1958) includes another slight edit of the second line ("Gay as a jewel" instead of "love's a jewel")  and the traditional "morning dew" is changed to "summer dew". But there is  also one more anachronism directly taken from Ramsay's "Waly, Waly": "waxes" replaces "groweth". In fact every new edit makes this line look older and more like the one in "Waly, Waly": from "grows older" in the texts from the broadside and from Mrs. Mogg it changes first to "groweth cold" and then to "waxes cold" which is just like the original.

Oh, love is handsome and love is fine,
Gay as a jewel when first it is new,
But love grows old, and waxes cold,
And fades away like summer dew .

But in most of the versions used today the "morning" has returned and these days this verse looks surprisingly similar to the one in Ramsay's "Waly, Waly". But that's simply because every editor since Sharp has added one more element of the original. 

Oh love is gentle and love is kind,
Gay as a jewel when first it's new,
But love grows old and waxes cold,
And fades away like the morning dew.

The first verse of "The Water Is Wide" also shows an interesting development. But in this case it's changed step-by-step until it reaches the version known today. One the early broadside of "I'm Often Drunk" it looks this way: 

The seas are deep and I cannot wade them
Neither have I wings to fly,
I wish I had some little boat
To carry over my love and I.

In the later edition published most likely since the 1790s "deep" is changed to "wide" and "cannot wade them" to "can't get over": 

The sea is wide and I can't get over 
Neither have I got wings to fly,
Come, fetch to me, then a little boat,
To carry over my true love and I.

Mrs. Mogg in 1904 turns it into "the water is wide". That's a nice alliteration and it sounds much better than the original lines. Of course we don't know if she made it up herself or if she learned it that way from someone else:

The water is wide and I can't get over
Neither have I got wings to fly.
Go and get me O some little, little boat 
For to carry over my true love and I.

In 1906 Cecil Sharp decided to retain the first two lines as sung by his informant. But it seems he didn't like the second half of this verse and he simply replaced it with something he wrote himself.  

The water is wide l cannot get o'er 
And neither have I wings to fly. 
Give me a boat that will carry two 
And both shall row, my Love and I.

That's the version of the first verse we know today. It was first made up by a writer of broadside ballads  and then later edited both by an old lady from Somerset and an academic Folklorist. A "Folk song" is usually the result of a complicated process and the input of the professional ballad writers and the professional Folklorists is often much greater than what the real "Folk" has contributed. And sometimes an "old" song is not that old and sometimes a Folklorist had to produce a "Folk song" himself, especially if he wasn't satisfied with what he had found among the "Folk".  But no matter who was involved in the creation of "The Water Is Wide": the song is still popular today and in the end that's what counts.   

Images & Illustrations

1. "The Water Is Wide", music sheet and midi-file created from file in abc-notation available at www.abcnotation.com
2. Allan Ramsay, The Tea-Table Miscellany, Vol. 1, 11th edition, London 1750, source: The Internet Archive
3. William Thomson, Orpheus Caledonius, Vol. 1, 2nd edition 1733, source of image: music timeline
4. From: Francis James Child, The English And Scottish Popular Ballads, Part 7 (i.e. Vol. 4.1), Boston & New York 1890, p. 93, source: The Internet Archive
5. From: "The Seamans Leave Taken On His Sweet Margery", broadside sheet, printed ca. 1681-1684, source: Pepys 4.158 at The English Broadside Ballad Archive (University of California, Santa Barbara)
6. "Waly, Waly, Gin Love Be Bonny", in: Joseph Ritson, Scotish Songs In Two Volumes, Vol. 1, 1794, 2nd ed. Glasgow 1869, p. 235, source: The Internet Archive
7. From: John Gay, Polly, an opera. Being the second part of The Beggar's opera, 1729, Act 1, Air VII, here p. 19 from an edition published London 1922, source: The Internet Archive
8. Cecil Sharp & Charles R. Marson, Folk Songs From Somerset. Third Series, London 1906, source pdf-file downloaded at IMSLP)
9. From: W. H. Logan, A Pedlar's Pack of Ballads and Songs, Edinburgh 1869, p. 336, source: The Internet Archive
10. From: "The Distressed Virgin", broadside sheet, printed ca. 1678-80, source: Pepys 3.313 at The English Broadside Ballad Archive (University of California, Santa Barbara)
11. From: Notes And Queries, 3rd Ser., Vol. 11, 1867, p. 441, source: The Internet Archive
12. "The Prickly Rose", from William Christie , Traditional Ballad Airs, Vol. I, Edinburgh 1876, p. 226, source: pdf-file of book downloaded from http://www.celtscot.ed.ac.uk/ballad.htm (University of Edinburgh, Celtic & Scottish Studies)
13. From sheet music: Ned Straight, "Sweet Maggie Gordon", New York 1880, source: http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.music/sm1880.01560, Music For The Nation: American Sheet Music (Library of Congress, Music Division), 
14. "Lord Thomas", As sung by Mrs. Hester House, Hot Springs, NC, 14.9.1916; tune and text from: Olive Dame Campbell & Cecil J. Sharp, English Folk Songs from The Southern Appalachians, p. 55

Bibliography

• J.W. Allen, Some Notes on "O Waly Waly", in: JEFDSS 7, 1954, p. 161-171
• Sabine Baring-Gould & Henry Fleetwood Shepard, Songs And Ballads Of The West: A Collection Made From The Mouths Of The People, London 1891 (available at The Internet Archive)
• Paul Brewster, Ballads And Songs Of Indiana, Bloomington 1940 (available at traditionalmusic.co.uk) 
• The Frank C. Brown Collection of North Carolina Folklore, Volume 2: Folk Ballads From North Carolina, ed. by H. M. Belden & A. P. Hudson, Durham 1952 (available at The Internet Archive)
• The Frank C. Brown Collection of North Carolina Folklore, Volume 3: Folk Songs From North Carolina, ed. by H. M. Belden & A. P. Hudson, Durham 1952 (available at The Internet Archive)
• Olive Dame Campbell & Cecil J. Sharp, English Folk Songs from The Southern Appalachians, New York & London 1917 (available at The Internet Archive)
• Robert Chambers, The Scottish Ballads, Edinburgh 1829 (available at The Internet Archive)
• Francis James Child, The English And Scottish Popular Ballads, Part 7 (i.e. Vol. 4.1), Boston & New York 1890 (available at The Internet Archive)
• Duncan Emrich, Folklore On The American Land, Boston & Toronto 1972
• William Christie, Traditional Ballad Airs, Vol. I, Edinburgh 1876 & Vol. II, Edinburgh 1881  (available for download as pdf-files at http://www.celtscot.ed.ac.uk/ballad.htm (University of Edinburgh, Celtic & Scottish Studies))
• John Harrington Cox, Folk-Songs Of The South, Gretna 1998 (first published 1924; partly available at Google Books)
• Albert Friedman, The Penguin Book of Folk Ballads of the English Speaking World, New York 1977 (first published 1956)
• John Glen, Early Scottish Melodies, Edinburgh 1900 (available at The Internet Archive) 
• George F. Graham, The Popular Songs of Scotland with Their Appropriate Melodies, 1856, new edition Edinburgh 1887 (available at The Internet Archive)
• Mellinger Edward Henry , Folk Songs From The Southern Highlands, New York 1938 (online at traditionalmusic.co.uk)
• David Herd,  Ancient and Modern Scottish Songs, Vol. 1, 1776 (reprint 1869 of 2nd ed. is available at the Internet Archive)
• Gale Huntington & Lani Herrmann (ed.), Sam Henry's Songs Of The People, Athens, GA 1990 (partly available at Google Books)
• James Johnson, The Scots Musical Museum, Vol. 2, 1788, Vol. 5, 1797, Vol.6, 1803
• Maud Karpeles (ed.), Cecil Sharp's Collection Of English Folk Songs, Vol. 1, London, New York & Toronto 1974
• W. H. Logan, A Pedlar's Pack of Ballads and Songs, Edinburgh 1869 (available at Google Books and The Internet Archive)
• Alan Lomax, The Folk Songs Of North America, New Yok 1960
• William Motherwell, Minstrelsy Ancient and Modern, Glasgow 1827, (available at Google Books)
• Notes And Queries. A Medium of Inter-Communication For Literary Men, General Readers, Etc.  3rd Ser., Vol. 11, 1867 (available at The Internet Archive)
• Louise Pound,  American Ballads And Songs, New York 1922 (available at The Internet Archive)
•  Frank Purslow, Marrow Bones - English Folk Songs from the Hammond and Gardiner Mss., London 1965 (reprint 2008 partly available at Google Books)
• Edward F. Rimbault, Musical Illustrations of Bishop Percy's 'Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, London 1850 (available at Google Books)
• Jean Ritchie, Folk Songs of the Southern Appalachians, Lexington 1997 (first published 1965; partly available at Google Books)
• Joseph Ritson, Scotish Songs In Two Volumes, Vol. 1, 1794, 2nd ed. Glasgow 1869 (available at The Internet Archive) 
• Carl Sandburg, The American Songbag, New York 1927 (online at The Internet Archive)
• Cecil Sharp & Charles R. Marson, Folk Songs From Somerset. Third Series, London 1906 (available as a pdf-file at IMSLP)
• Cecil Sharp, One Hundred English Folk Songs For Medium Voice, Boston & New York 1916 (available at The Internet Archive)
• Betty N. Smith, Jane Hicks Gentry: A Singer Among Singers, Lexington 1998 (partly available at Google Books)
• Harold W. Thompson, Body, Boots, & Britches: Folktales, Ballads, and Speech from Country New York, Syracuse 1979 (first published 1939; partly available at Google Books

Online Resources

• allegro Catalogue Of Broadside Ballads (Bodleian Library, Oxford)
• Copac National, Academic, and Specialist Library Catalogue
• Digital Tradition Database
• Early English Book Online (EEBO, access only through participating institutions like libraries)
• Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO; access only through participating institutions like libraries. I have identified each quoted item with the ESTC number so it's easy to find there)
• English Broadside Ballad Archive (University of Santa Barbara, California)
• Glasgow Broadsides Ballads - The Murray Collection (University of Glasgow)
• IMSLP/Petrucci Music Library
• John Jacob Niles - Dean of American Balladeers  (Discography)
• James Prescott, Folk Song Index
• Jane Keefer, Folk Music - An Index To Recorded Sources
• The Lester S. Levy Collection of Sheet Music (John Hopkins University)
• Music For The Nation: American Sheet Music (Music Division, Library of Congress)
• Mudcat Discussion Board (MDB; I have learned a lot from reading the excellent discussions there, especially Water Is Wide - First American Version and I have done my best to link to and give credit to all the posts I am indebted to)
• National Burns Collection
• Smithsonian Folkways
• Songs Of The West (A great website about Sabine Baring-Gould)
• Steven Roud, Folk Song Index, English Folk Dance And Song Society (Vaughn Williams Memorial Library)
• Take Six Homepage, English Folk Dance And Song Society (a database of the manuscript archives of the British Folk song collectors Janet Blunt, George Butterworth, Francis Collinson, George Gardiner, Anne Gilchrist and Henry Hammond. 
• The Traditional Ballad Index. An Annotated Bibliography of the Folk Songs of the English-Speaking World
• A Traditional Music Library of folk music, tune-books, songbooks and sheet music
• Wiltshire Folk Songs (on Wiltshire Council Website; it seems it’s not possible to link directly to this page and to particular songs but it can be found with the help of the menu:  Community/Community History/Folk Arts)
• The Word On The Street (National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh)

Many thanks  to Stewart Grant who has written about “The Water Is Wide” for my former website and  who encouraged me find out a little more about this song!

Comments: Please use my blog or  send a mail to info[at]justanothertune.com

© Jürgen Kloss,
October 2010