Here's a mystery for you. Can anyone help?

Soaking in Terence Stamp's fine 1967 film "Far From the Madding Crowd," and enjoying the director's happy choice to use traditional songs in traditional styles,I was struck by the one song I'd never heard before:

I LOST MY LOVE I CARE NOT
Sung by Paul Dawkins in "Far From the Madding Crowd"

'Er's gone away, and I care not,
'Er's gone away, and I care not,
I'll soon find another that's better than t'other,
'Er's gone away, and I care not.

I lost my love, and I care not,
I lost my love, and I care not,]
I'll soon find another that's better than t'other,
I lost my love and I care not.

Nicely sung, to a very traditional-sounding tune. Considering how good a song it is, I'm surprised to find no reference to it anywhere in DT.

Trying to find out more about the song, I found it's printed (one verse) in Thomas Hardy's novel, basis for the film ... but nowhere else. None of the folk resources (web or books) I've gathered over a long life of digging have anything on that song.

Unless it has a separate source, the tune must have been supplied for the film, doubtless by Paul Dawkins or someone. The tune is not one I'm familiar with. It does sound authentic, but is it?

The Fiddler's Companion has a fiddle tune called I Lost My Love I Care Not. It is a wholly different tune. It cross-references to "Bundle and Go," which I vaguely remember hearing sung at a folk festival in the 70s. Can't recall if the tune is similar. However, the phrase normally refers to a Scots pipe tune (wholly different), and also occurs in Jeannie Robertson's "Bonnie Wee Lassie Who Never Said No," no real similarity there either.

Did Hardy write "I Lost My Love I Care Not?" Or is it something he heard in the West Country? He had a nice touch for that region's dialect and tradition, and was notably sensitive to music.

All the other songs he includes as part of the scene in the book are rock-botto traditional. Is this? I can find no independent source for it.

Can anyone enlighten me further?

Thanks, Bob