Although Rosabella has been discussed a bit earlier, this new info is really interesting. The working idea, in summary, is:

John Short's singing > Sharp's text > TomB & BB > Collins & Mageean > most others, including Stan Hugill

This the kind of stuff I find really interesting. If you could not already tell, I am a very skeptical person when it comes to sources and "origins." Not that I don't enjoy everything and anything regardless of the source! I just find it fascinating how forgetting, the folk process, and imagination all interact to shape our current perceptions of repertoire.

What really interests me about Stan Hugill's legacy is how is image as an "authority" (as indeed I think he was) feeds back into his scholarship. His text is a combination of tons of first-hand knowledge and lots of second hand sources, all mixed up with a few drops of "faith" which (unlike a writer like Doerflinger) adds enough ambiguity to give that sense of "it's all traditional...it's anonymous...we'll never know" etc. It all contributes to the effect of making the text like the "Bible."

Gibb