And I'm another! When I recorded it, I was embarrassed by the tears that I couldn't hide from the folks who were singing the chorus with me.

I didn't come in on this one right away because I couldn't find the book in which I read of the Canadian connection and I wasn't sure I remembered the story correctly. I'm glad that all you good folk have filled in for me!

Checking my text with that published in Heart Songs, I see that I've made only one change: I sing "The green grass is gone from the hill, Maggie," while the text there reads "green grove." The "creeking old mill" is as it was printed there, not my doing. It does tell us that it was first published in 1867.

I'll add one more bit: the song, with almost no alteration in the text, was included by Ord in his Bothy Ballads, a splendid collection of songs that were popular in the Scottish farmhands' equivalent of our American "bunkhouses." So, clearly, it became widely known early on.

The text often sung now by young Irish singers is a re-write from a popular Irish play (Sean O'Casey?) in which the wife asks her husband for a song and he offers "Maggie." "No, that's too sad," she says, so he makes up some new words for it. One of our great Irish Mudcatters can surely tell us in which play that scene occurs. I've forgotten, dammit! It's a good re-write, but I like the original even better.

Sandy