Pete Seeger wedded the James Waters melody to "I Come and Stand at Every Door," believing it to be a traditional tune. When he discovered it was actually newly written for the Great Silkie ballad, he made sure that proper credit was given to the tune's composer. Waters, by the way, was reading Child's compilation (I'm pretty sure it was while he was a student at MIT) and found the text very appealing and regretted that it had no accompanying tune. So he got out his banjo and made up the one that has been most often recorded (with minor variations due to human inaccuracies). I rarely prefer a newly written tune to one that hails from tradition, but, in this instance, I do. By the way, I think Jim's tune should be described as mixolydian, rather than minor (aeolian), and its resemblance to Scarlet Ribbons seems fairly superficial to me.

Sandy