ooppss!!
In 1960-61 I learned this song for my voice teacher & actually won a 2nd place in a local contest with a program which included this song. It was either in "Reliquary of English Song", or the 1st or 2nd volume of Boosey & Hawkes "Irish Folk Songs". Prob. the latter. The lines about Sheevra quoted above seemed to me & my teacher to refer to the moon; some traditional spirit character sailing his boat becomes the moon. A lovely, soft song. Several years later, in a rocking chair with a baby in my arms it's one that I dredged up--along with Aunt Rhody, Jean Ritchie's Darby's Ram, several All the Pretty Little Pony versions, Hush...Mockingbird, etc.--to aid the calming/go to sleep process. (The fave of my youngest was Jean Ritchie's Old Woman All Skin & Bones. Even sound asleep he'd giggle at the BOOO!!) Tw