English versions of this song are also noted for incomprehensible words, which have generated much enjoyable speculation as to whether they are about tin-mining, the Virgin Mary, or portions of the male and female anatomy. Whatever the song may have originally been about, it has certainly given rise to some very odd variants. I imagine there must be other threads about the "Streams of Lovely Nancy" or the "Streams of Nantsian". I always find the ivory tower rising out of the black sand a little...I suppose "suggestive" is the word.