Hi Greg & others,

Here's my 2p worth on the subject.

This song was certainly composed before 1960, probably by one or more Oxford undergraduates. Certainly, it was already current amongst members of the Heritage Society when I joined in 1960. Eric Winter learned it in 1962 from me and Bob Pierce (via Jim Basset), and printed it in his "Sing!" magazine, after which it diffused rapidly through the folk club scene.

In the same year Rory & Alex MacEwan, Dick Farina and Carolyn Hester gave it even wider publicity in their Edinburgh Festival Folk Revue (extracts from which were shown on national TV). Rory, who was at Cambridge in the late '50s may have got it from Eric, or have learned it from the original source at one of the annual Oxford/Cambridge singarounds.

The song was also sung in the Anglo-South African stage show, "Wait a Minim" which featured (among others)Andrew Tracy and Jeremy Taylor. Either (or both) of whom may have picked up the song while they were at Oxford in the '50s - or possibly even written it themselves.

Anyone out there got any further information?

Wassail!