Kathy,

Look here Penguin: The Trees They Grow So High for lots of versions of the song about the young lad (Daily Growing, The Bonny Boy, etc).

Where mentioned in the songs, the ribbons are usually blue or white, but, as the Penguin Book of English Folksongs (1959) says, "The presenting and wearing of coloured ribbons, once common in Britain, still plays a prominent part in betrothal and marriage in Central and Eastern Europe."