I think Bruce is pointing out that perhaps Burns did not get the tune from "an earlier 'Rustic song'" as Phil Thomas thought. Bruce looked up several songs for me while we were working on our CD. He's an amazing resource.

James Anderson's song first appeared in the Cariboo Sentinel newspaer, without notes. It was written in March, 1866, in his second "Letter to Sawney". Again, he did not write out the notation. The 1868 date comes from the first time this booklet, mostly already typeset for the Sentinel, was published. A second edtion came out the following spring after the Great fire of 1868 that destroyed most of Barkerville. The next editon that I know of was 1962, a cenntennial project of the provincial government. It appears to have been retypeset and no longer has the newpaper column format and longer page of the original.

This is one of the challanges of researching this era of music. Most songs are recorded in diaries, letters or the newspapers, so notation is not given. But, they had little need to. The tunes, while often obscure today, were common at the time. Like us saying it's to the air of "I walk the Line". Who would need the notes? (It happens to be playing).

And, often the song is only refered to in a letter by a line, a title or a few words.