The earliest source for this song may be Bascom Lamar Lunsford. Susan Reed may have gotten it from him; in the 1930s or 40s her parents, who circulated widely in search of folk songs, doubtless took her to his annual Mountain Dance and Folk Festival at the Asheville City Auditorium, the best known folk festival of its day.

In Bascom Lamar Lunsford and Lamar Stringfield, "30 and 1 Folk Songs From the Southern Mountains," by New York, Carl Fischer, 1929, he has:

LITTLE TURTLE DOVE

Poor little turtle dove,
Sitting in the pine,
Mournin' for his own true love,
And why not me for mine, mine,
Why not me for mine.

Not a-gonna marry in the fall of the year,
I'm gonna marry in the spring,
I'm gonna marry a pretty little girl,
Who weas a silver ring, a ring,
Who wears a silver ring.

Not a-gonna marry in the spring of the year,
I'm gonna marry in the fall,
I'm gonna marry a pretty little girl
Who wears a dollar shawl, shawl,
Who wears a dollar shawl.

I went up on the mountain
To give my horn a blow,
Way down in the valley
I heard that rooster crow ...

My daddy had an old gray mare,
He rode her off to town,
Sold her for a new ten cents
An' got a nickel down ...

I went up on the mountain
To get a turn of corn,
Raccoon curled his tail around,
Possum broke his horn ...

An' there's hogs in the pen,,
Corn to feed 'em on,
All I want is a pretty little girl,
To feed them when I'm gone ...

The five-verse version published by Loyal Jones in "Minstrel of the Appalachians: The Story of Bascom Lamar Lunsford, Boone NC, Appalachian Consortium Press, 1984, is shorter, containing five of the above verses, with a few differences in phrasing.

Bob