Okay, I'll go out on a limb and hazard a guess. I'll wager Ed Cray counted North American versions in Bronson and came up with six, including the Creighton "Sanford" version, one of the five in her Traditional Songs from Nova Scotia (Toronto, 1950), which is fragmentary, having only two and a half verses. That led him to assume that Joe Estey's version was the seventh. What the heck, Rich, he was writing a brief review for the internet, not a scholarly article. The others in Bronson, by the way, are mostly from Scotland. Apparently Creighton did not have a version of this ballad for her 1932 Songs and Ballads from Nova Scotia, at least I don't find one there. I'm suspicious of Gainer's report, too, As the ballad does seem to have survived almost exclusively in the Maritimes. Sandy Ives always thought Maine should be included in that geographic region, folkloristically (is that a word?)speaking.

I was surprised to note that Sandy didn't include Stanley MacDonald's quite complete version in his Folksongs of New Brunswick (Fredericton, NB, 1989), although he did include several of Stanley's other songs. Nor did he include Estey's, although he was with us when it was recorded.

I think we have to look for a printed source that must have circulated throughout Nova Scotia a number of years ago. The complete texts printed by Creighton are remarkably close to the one sung by Joe Estey, with only a few minor variations ("gold in her ears" as compared to Joe's "jewelry in her hair," for instance; trivial stuff).

The tune Estey sings, I should point out, has a noticeable resemblance to the widely known "Farewell to Nova Scotia," which could be considered a "sea song," to return briefly to the subject of this thread. I don't associate that melody with any of the tunes I've heard to the "Bury Me Not" (ocean or lone prairie) songs being discussed in another Mudcat thread at this time. But I don't really read music, so I can't judge similarities from the various printed sources.

Sandy