Joe,

Digitrad credits its Oleanna lyrics to Pete Seeger but is missing one of his verses and adds one by Bikel.

I like the second version you posted, but I would omit the spoken part and the Bikel verse. His verse is no more important than the other two he made up or the three that Alan Lomax invented for his Seeger – Lomax version of the song in 1960. Seeger spoke of the hickory stick verse, but it was not part of his translation. He only translated six of the song's twenty-two verses.

Smithsonian Folkways sells two recordings that Pete Seeger made of the song. You can download the liner notes from these albums at no charge. The 1956 recording is live, and Pete Seeger's spoken part is on the recording. The liner notes have the song lyrics, which omit the spoken part.

IRRELEVANT BUT FUN
Seeger's introduction to the song was incorrect and / or misleading. It suggests, though, that his translation was done in 1955, the year he first recorded the song.

About a year ago — almost exactly a year ago — a friend of mine loaned me a book (1) of the songs made up by Norwegian immigrants. (2) Oh, there are several hundred songs (3) in the book — all in Norwegian, which I can't understand a word, much less pronounce a word. But I was fortunate to get some translations (4), and I think a lot of you know one of the songs which came out of that.

(1) Norwegian Emigrant Songs and Ballads by Theodore C. Blegen
(2) The songs were all written by people living in Norway
(3) The book had about 60 songs
(4) The book was written in English and each song had the original Norwegian lyrics plus a literal translation

I wrote all of the Oleanna (song) Wikipedia article except the first small section. I also added the Norwegian lyrics and a link to Theodore C. Blegen's 1944 rhyming translation of all 22 verses.

According to a third party traffic counter, several hundred people read the article a month. It links to Digitrad, which unfortunately has these garbled lyrics attributed to Seeger.

Anyway, thanks for listening. My suggestion: go with the second version, minus the spoken parts and Bikel.

Paul