t turns out that the Cunningham note referred to in Stephen Sedley's book (see above) is more extensive than I had guessed, so I reproduce it here as quoted in the Journal of the Folk Song Society, vol.I issue 5, 1904: p.269; which was probably Sedley's source. It accompanied a fragmentary set of Drowsy Sleeper, there entitled O, Who is it that Raps at My Window, noted by W. Percy Merrick in c.1899 from the prolific Henry Hills of Lodsworth in Sussex, who had learned it from his mother. The note was added by Lucy Broadwood.

"For the following very interesting information see the note on O, my luve's like a red, red rose in Alan Cunningham's Works of Robert Burns (1834). Cunningham writes: 'An old Nithsdale song seems to have been in the Poet's thoughts when he wrote this exquisite lyric... Martha Crosbie, a carder and spinner of wool, sometimes desiring to be more than commonly acceptable to the children of my father's house, made her way to their hearts by singing... the following ancient strain:-

"Who is this under my window?
Who is this that troubles me?"
"O, it is I, love, and none but I, love,
I wish to speak one word with thee.

Go to your mother, and ask her, jewel,
If she'll consent you my bride to be;
And, if she does na, come back and tell me,
This is the last time I'll visit thee."

"My mother's in her chamber, jewel,
And of lover's talking will not hear;
Therefore you may go and court another,
And whisper softly in her ear."

The song proceeds to relate how mother and father were averse to the lover's suit, and that, exasperated by their scorn, and the coldness of the maiden, he ran off in despair: on relenting, she finds he is gone, and breaks out in these fine lines:-

"O, where's he gone that I love best,
And has left me here to sigh and moan?
O I will search the wide world over,
Till my true love I find again.

The seas shall dry, and the fishes fly,
And the rocks shall melt down wi' the sun;
The labouring man shall forget his labour,
The blackbird shall not sing, but mourn,
If ever I prove false to my love,
Till once I see if he return." '

Presumably Cunningham was speaking of the use of images in the final verse rather than suggesting any relationship between the melodies used. John Ord (Bothy Songs and Ballads, 1930, pp. 318-19, prints a long set, without music, which he calls I Will Set My Ship in Order; this seems to have been the usual title of Aberdeenshire versions, of which several appear in the Greig-Duncan collection.