I don't think Judy Collins composed the air. I heard her sing the song earlier this month and she said she couldn't remember who the composer was. She suggested maybe John Jacob Niles. I went up afterwards and mentioned Serafin, though I think he had a different tune from the one Collins uses, because as you see in my old message I mentioned that a few people had set the song to music.

Judy Collins didn't recognise the name Serafin, so I asked lots of people with knowledge, experience, interest in the folk music scene and couldn't find anyone who remembers him. I had an lp in mid or late 1960s, Serafin the self-styled wandering minstrel, pictured on the album cover with a flowing cape. Besides the Song of the Wandering Aengus, I remember he sang The Bonny Earl of Murray.