Meanwhile, back at the challenge ...

Mmario - the original I learned from my grandfather, so it's genuine folk process! However a Google search (I'd forgotten one of the couplets) came up with this , which indicates that it's a very old piece of nonsense.

The point is, of course, that if you change the punctuation, it makes perfect sense:

I saw a peacock
With a fiery tail I saw a comet
Shower down hail, I saw a cloud
etc.

I didn't really have a tune (I usually write to existing tunes, but not this time). I've tried to put one together - I'll send it to the Mudcat Midi page.

Apologies for the mistakes in the lyrics - 'tale' should obviously be 'tail', and 'oak tree' (as in the original lyrics) scans better than 'sturdy oak'. I kept switching between the words I thought I knew, and those I found on the web.

Bradypus