On the album _Song of a Young Country_ (1971), Tommy Wood is assigned the duty of singing "Wellerman," making his the first recorded performance.

https://youtu.be/aqFMmKXOxE4

Notice that while Tommy Wood follows rough contours of melody, his is significantly different from the one we are now familiar with. It's in a major rather than a minor key.

Where did Tommy Wood get this melody? Colquhoun did not record Frank Woods. We understand from Michael Brown's work that Colquhoun either 1) took down the melody (if Frank Woods indeed sang it as a song) from Frank Woods by hand or else 2) remembered the melody. Colquhoun would either have to have taught the melody to Tommy Wood orally or wrote it down. We'll see in a moment that if Colquhoun wrote it down to be read by Tommy, then Tommy did a terrible job of reading it! That's possible, though it sounds a bit silly to me. It's unlikely, too, that Colquhoun taught the melody to Tommy orally because...

Once the second edition of _New Zealand Folksongs_ is published in the following year (1972), as a sort of companion to the record album, the melody noted by Colquhoun is different.

This suggests to me a third possibility: Colquhoun originally had no melody for "Wellerman." Tommy Wood made up the melody, for the album, and Colquhoun made his own melody for the book. This idea will not sound satisfying, but according to my reasoning it is the *most* likely.

As an aside: The melody in Colquhoun's 1972 book, often republished, would of course be the melody adopted by later singers who engaged the book. So, as earlier noted in this thread, when Gordon Bok chose to perform "Wellerman" in the 1990s, he obtained the book and Bok's melody accords with the book melody.
https://youtu.be/Yzhlu1Dr4KA

It would seem to be only recently -- perhaps through the performance of The Longest Johns, which I believe was the source of Nathan Evans? -- that Colquhoun's book melody morphed into what we're hearing on the airwaves now.

Returning to the earlier melodies: Given the facts I have presented (I may have made a mistake), does anyone think Frank Woods sang a melody for "Wellerman"? If so, how can you explain how Tommy Wood sang one melody in 1971 and Colquhoun noted another in 1972? To be fair, both melodies have a similar contour. If I heard a performance just once and later tried to recall it very imperfectly, I might end up inadvertently creating a "different" melody. Yet Colquhoun had oversight on the album on which Tommy Wood sang; he signed off on it.

I conclude that some kind of hanky-panky was going on. The 1971 album, I believe was in the works prior to that year, perhaps making it unlikely or impossible that Tommy Wood was under the influence of "The Lightning Tree" (TV theme)—though I'd like to know what month in 1971 the album was recorded (before or after June?). That said, Colquhoun's book melody is more similar to "The Lightning Tree" (being at least in minor) and came after its existence on the pop charts. Subjectively, Colquhoun's book melody sounds like a hybrid of Tommy Wood's version and "The Lightning Tree."

I hope I've demonstrated that
1) an influence of "The Lightning Tree" is not far-fetched
2) the possibility that Colquhoun, or an associate, made up or re-invented the melody for "Wellerman" is a real possibility
3) it's possible that Frank Woods did not give "Wellerman" as a song, but rather as a poem -- or even part of a poem that Colquhoun fleshed out with more verses

Is "The Wellerman" a "fakesong"? Maybe, maybe not. If by fakesong we mean largely (not totally) contrived by a folkie, then there's a good possibility. If the song existed prior to the folkie treatment, then not, but still be can much better imagine a limited, unilinear practice of the song (i.e. by only one or a few individuals) that makes it hard to honesty imagine it was a "folk" song (i.e. part of a diffuse tradition in the hands of many people over an extended time).