So I guess we have England about 1920, that would fit both the tune and the text. Holland and Germany seem to be unsupported, or does anyone know about that evidence "cetmst" wrote about above, back in '03?

The Bells in the title must be flowers; if they were anything more rigid, you wouldn't need fairies to sound them. Actually the tune is not the best round ever written, simplistic in style and wasteful in ambitus, as Alex S rightly points out. It is the text that makes the song attractive: neo-romantic lyrics without any intellectual ambitions, as if made for a Girl Scout's friendship book. So I guess the melody was composed after the text, which is another argument contra a non-English provenance.

Who knows a printed source from earlier than 1930?

Bjarne