I've been doing a little more digging about this song, and thought it might be worth trying to co-ordinate other threads that are relevant to this one.

I've long been convinced that 'All Around my Hat' and the folk revival favourite 'Twas on one April Morning' are closely linked, on account of the similarity in the tunes and the verse complaining about deceitful young men. However, it seems that others got there before me. Malcolm Douglas on this thread (23 Aug 08 - 09:54 PM) referred to the broadside 'Green Willow' as a precursor of the cockney costermonger's 'All Around my Hat', and Artful Codger has already posted that text on the 'April Morning' thread. It will do no harm to repost it on this one:

[Begin quote]

Subject: Lyr Add: Green Willow
From: Artful Codger - PM
Date: 26 Sep 09 - 04:13 PM

In an attempt at consolidation, I'm reposting here the text of the broadside "Green Willow", which I first posted in another thread:

[...] The Bodley copies of this broadside contain clear relatives of all of the "April Morning" stanzas except the first. You can draw your own conclusions.

Bodley Ballads: Harding B 11(1432) [between 1813 and 1838]
Published by J. Catnach, 2, Monmouth-court 7 Dials
Also Harding B 11(1433) [1819-1844] with differences shown in brackets.
Published by Pitts, 6, Gt. St. Andrew Street, Seven Dials

The Green Willow.

Young men are false and they are so deceitful,
Young men are false and they seldom will prove true,
For rangling and jangling their minds are always changing,
They're always see[k]ing for some pretty young girl that is true.

It's all round my hat I will wear a green willow,
It's all round my hat for a twelvemonth and a day,
If any one should ask you the reason why I wear it,
O tell them I have been slighted by my own true love.

You false hearted young men you know you have deceived me,
You false hearted young men you caused me to rue,
For love it does grow older & seldom does grow bolder,
All fades away like the sweet morning dew.

O that I had but my own heart to keep it,
O that I had but my own heart again,
Closely in my bosom I would lock it up for ever;
[O] Never would I ramble so far far again.

For many a long hour have I spent courting,
For many a long hour have I spent in vain,
But since 'tis my misfortune that I must die a maiden,
O never would I ramble so far far again.


The fragment mentioned earlier (consisting of the first two verses above) was printed in The History of Signboards from the Earliest Times to the Present Day (1908) by Jacob Larwood, L.R. Sadler, John Camden Hotten, on page 247. It was quoted a passage discussing the use of the willow as a symbol of sadness and forsaken love. The writer(s) had heard it sung by an old Northumberland woman, but had never seen it in print.

He/they also wrote (possibly quoting Douce at this point):
'[...] the Agnus castus or vitex was supposed by the ancients to promote chastity, "and the willow being of a much like nature," says an old writer, "it is yet a custom that he which is deprived of his love must wear a willow garland."—Swan's Speculum Mundi, ch. vi, sec. 4. 1635.'

Other threads here have discussed the relationship (by parody?) between "The Green Willow" and the later "All Around My Hat".

[End quote]

What you have above, then, is pretty much the song we know as 'April Morning' with the 'Hat' chorus as its second verse. Now look at what George Butterworth collected under the title 'All Around my Hat' from Edmund Knight of Washington, Sussex, in 1907 (courtesy of the EFDSS Take 6 archive):

Tune

Lyrics

It's a version of the familiar 'Hat' tune (albeit with an interesting F natural that takes it into Mixolydian territory), with a set of verses that resemble very closely this broadside from the Bodleian. And lyrically, it's Artful Codger's 'Green Willow' with the floating verses shoehorned into a tale about two named lovers. So we now know that both the 'William and Pheobe' version and the cockney version survived in 20th century oral tradition.

Just to confuse matters further, this version, from the Hammond collection via Butterworth, of The Nobleman's Wedding includes the 'Hat' refrain as its opening and closing verse, and has a tune related to the usual one.

Looks like 'All Around my Hat' is a 'floating chorus' - you could argue that what Steeleye Span did with it in the 1970s (grafting a dfferent set of verses onto it) was no different to what had been going on for a century and a half!