DADgbe, there was some idle speculation above that I'm sure Jack and Steve found annoying, and it brought forth their curmudgeonry...

Peter Buchan's version of the song is Child 281c, and comes from the first volume of his Ballads from the North of Scotland (1828?). So, Buchan would be a bit earlier than Whitelaw's 1845 book.

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Here's the Traditional Ballad Index version of this song, which offers some interesting sources to explore:

Keach i the Creel, The [Child 281]

DESCRIPTION: A clerk and a girl wish to keep company, but she cannot escape her parents' home. He plans to to meet her by going down the chimney in a creel The suspicious mother enters the room and is pulled up in the creel, then dropped by the startled rope-puller
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1827 (Kinloch)
KEYWORDS: courting father mother elopement nightvisit humorous
FOUND IN: Britain(England(North),Scotland(Aber,Bord)) Ireland US(MA,NE) Canada(Mar)
REFERENCES (17 citations):
Child 281, "The Keach i the Creel" (4 texts, 1 tune) {Bronson's #12}
Bronson 281, "The Keach i the Creel" (38 versions)
Dixon-Peasantry, Ballad #13, pp. 112-116,243, "The Keach I the Creel" (1 text)
Bell-Combined, pp. 295-297, "The Keach i' the Creel" (1 text)
GreigDuncan2 317, "The Wee Toon Clerk" (20 texts, 15 tunes) {C=Bronson's #7, E=#38, F=#11, G=#10, H=#9, I=#18, J=#32, M=#2, N=#3, O=#31, P=#33}
Lyle-Crawfurd1 25, "The Auld Wife and the Peat Creel" (1 text, 1 tune)
BarryEckstormSmyth pp. 336-339, "The Keach i' the Creel" (1 text plus a fragment, 2 tunes) {Bronson's #5, #6}
Flanders-Ancient4, pp. 136-138, "The Keach i' the Creel" (1 fragment, 1 tune)
Ford-Vagabond, pp. 277-280, "The Wee Toun Clerk" (1 text, 1 tune) {Bronson's #13}
Stokoe/Reay, pp. 22-23, "The Keach i' the Creel" (1 text, 1 tune) {cf. Bronson's #4}
FSCatskills 133, "The Little Scotch Girl" (1 text, 1 tune)
SHenry H201, pp. 265-266, "The Ride in the Creel" (1 text, 1 tune)
Graham/Holmes 64, "The Ride in the Creel" (1 text, 1 tune)
Tunney-StoneFiddle, pp. 92-93, "The Cetch in the Creel" (1 text)
Kinloch-BBook XVII, pp. 61-63, "The Covering Blue" (1 text)
Whitelaw-Ballads, pp. 35-36, "Keach I' the Creel" (1 text)
DT 281, KEACHCRL*
Roud #120
RECORDINGS:
Michael Gallagher, "The Keach in the Creel" (on FSB5, FSBBAL2) {Bronson's #36, with the title "Hurroo-Ri-Ah"}
Jamsie McCarthy, "Coochie Coochie Coo Go Way" (on Voice15)
SAME TUNE:
Moody to the Rescue (File: FowM005)
ALTERNATE TITLES:
The Cunning Clerk
The Wife and the Creel
The Rock in the Same Auld Creel
NOTES: Kinloch's "The Covering Blue" omit the ride in the creel, but is obviously the same song (and Child included it as his "D" text). Thus, though most of the humor of the piece comes when the clerk hauls the auld woman up the chimney, the key point is the nightvisiting theme. - RBW
Whitelaw-Ballads is Child's source for text 281A. - BS
Last updated in version 3.5
File: C281

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