Child 56A was taken from Joshua Sylvester's A Garland of Christmas Carols, ancient and modern, including some never before given in any collections, London, 1861. Sylvester cited "an old Birmingham broadside" as his source. Under 56A Child also cites a text in Wm. Henry Husk's Songs of the Nativity (London, 1870s), derived from "from a Worcestershire broadside of the last century", and specifies the relatively minor particulars in which it differs from the main text.
There are a number of broadside texts at Bodleian Library Broadsides, including four printed in Birmingham.