This is the note of Isla Cameron's version Let No Man Steal your Thyme from the album she did with MacColl in 1958, Still I lLove Him.

"5 LET NO MAN STEAL YOUR THYME. One of the most famous of all English love-songs, and a celebrated piece of erotic symbology. Out of this song grew another, still more famous, called The Seeds of Love which was the first folk song Cecil Sharp ever noted (from the vicarage gardener of Hambridge, Somerset). Also known as The Sprig of Thyme, it has wandered across to Ireland, and it is an unpublished Irish version that Miss Cameron sings here, learned from a recording in the BBC's Recorded Programmes Library."

THe Irish version referred to was
SPRIG OF THYME
Singer: Patrick Green                                                                        Ballinalee, Co. Longford.
26.8.47

I don't know if it is of any significance, but the Singer, (in Irish, Padraig McGreine) was a noted expert in Irish Traveller life and taught their children
He died a few years ago aged over 100
Jim Carroll

He die