I think you all ought to know that Paul Brady got this song from a friend's copy of Carrie Grover's A Heritage of Songs, originally published through the efforts of George Farnsworth and Ann Griggs at the Gould Academy in Bethel, Maine. Most people don't realize that this version of the song came from a traditional singer in Maine. Carrie Grover had songs from both her mother and her father and from her neighbors up there in the western part of the state, including, by the way, "The Braes of Balquither" and "Lass Among the Heather," both derived from the Tannahill poem that gave us "Wild Mountain Thyme." All in all, it's an astounding collection. Mrs. Grover also recorded some of her songs for what is now the Archive of Folk Culture at the Library of Congress.

Caroline and I were singing at Gould Academy some years ago and were given a copy of the original publication by a member of the staff there. It seems they had a few left-over copies in a closet and he thought we "might find it interesting!" We discovered that neither the Library of Congress nor Kenny Goldstein had the book, and arranged to have them get copies. Kenny later republished it through his Folklore Associates press. You might be able to find a copy of that edition.

I'll post the Grover text later (gotta get a program ready now for a gig we're doing tomorrow), but I can't give you whatever changes Brady may have made when he sang it, as I don't have his recording of it.

Sandy