I see this answer comes decades too late, but since “nutty“ is interested, I wrote the “the babe, it knows no grief nor care“ verse for “the ripe and bearded barley“ many years ago when I was recording the song with a friend, Christa Burch. We were making an eponymous demo CD (“lintie”) to send out to radio stations to market our duo. It gives me a big kick to see that verse now included with the traditional lyrics on various websites!

Kim Hughes