Wow Q,

Thanks for the Belden versions.

This version below (The Willow Tree) and your versions from the Bodleian are all similar but not the right song. Maybe they eventually evolved from an earlier similar source but the verses in Belden and from the Appalchians are distinct.

The real question is how did the same verses exsist in Missouri and in the remote parts of the southern mountains without being evolved from a single source song?

Collected by Randolph July 16, 1928: The Willow Tree
Mrs. Emma Chambliss from Anderson, MO.

The mournful night wind sweepeth,
About the lovely spot.
Where by now Mary sleepeth
By all but me forgot.

Under the willow
She sleeps and dreams of me
Death made her bridal pillow
Beneath the Willow tree.

Richie