Hi,

The identifying 'warning' stanza of "Young Ladies" and the "Love is handsome" stanza are both found in UK versions of "love is Teasing" in the early 1900s.

If we look at Morgan Sexton's version posted in this thread:

I wish I was a little sparrow
And I had wings and I could fly
I would fly away to a false-hearted lover
And there I'd stay until I died.

O if I was some little sparrow
And I had no wings and could not fly
I would set down in some grieving sorrow
Where you would laugh and I would cry.

There is a day a day a comin
We shall not part or I shall see
I hope there is a place in the middle of torment
For that man is deceiving me.

If I knew him before I courted him
There is love hard to win
I would lock my heart in a box of golden
I would pin it down there with a silver pin.

The last two stanzas are from Wheel of Fortune. The other stanza or stanzas common in "Young Ladies" is the "I wish I was a little sparrow" stanza. This is a common floater found in many songs but particularly the maid in sorrow abandoned by a false love songs-- such as the Died for Love songs. Here's one example from Some Songs Traditional in the United States; Tolman 1916:

Why a faithless lover should be called a "true love," and why the devoted maiden should wish to fly away to him, are not made clear.

I. I wish I was a little sparrow;
   I'd fly away from grief and sorrow;
   I'd fly away like a turtle dove;
   I'd fly away to my own true love.

2. 'Twas but last night he said to me:
   "I'll take you o'er the dark blue sea."
But now he's gone, and left me alone,
A single maid without a home.

3. Oh grief, oh grief! I'll tell you why:
   Because she has more gold than I;
He takes that other girl on his knee,
And tells her what he don't tell me.

4. I wish, I wish, but all in vain,
That my true love would come back again.
But then I know that will never be,
    Till the green, green grass grows over me.

The last two stanzas are from Died For Love. The swallow stanza is part of a group of songs I call Pitman's Love Song- each stanza begins:

I wish I were a. . .

In Rambling Boy there are two stanzas: "I wish I was a fly," and,

I wish I were a black-bird or thrush,
Singing my notes from bush to bush;
That all the world might plainly fee,
I lov'd a man, and he lov'd not me.

"I wish I was a Little Sparrow" is found in many love lost songs in the Appalachians. No point in giving more examples.

At least two "Young Ladies" versions are made up of three stanzas like Dellie Norton's or Holcomb's:

It's I wish I were some little sparrow,
I had wings and I could fly.
I'd fly away to my own true lover
And when she courted I'd be by.

But I ain't no little sparrow.
I have no wings nor I cain't fly.
So set right here in grief and sorrow,
I'll set right here until I die.

I'll go down to yonders river,
I'll spend my months, my weeks, my years.
I'd eat nothing but green willow
And I'd drink nothing but my tears.

In this case the last stanza is taken from US version's of Silver Dagger/O Katie Dear/Drowsy Sleeper.

There a many variables- I believe the dialogue created in the second "swallow" stanza,

But as I am no little sparrow,
neither wings nor can I fly,

is a local adaptation.

Richie