Do I recall aright that the singer from whom Peter Kennedy collected a version had forgotten the Banks and Braes tune and used the one he knew from a Burl Ives record?

I am not sure that this thread ever produced a convincing explanation of quite why someone chose the phrase "foggy dew" to replace "bugaboo" (or similar) or exactly what it meant. Michael G-M had a point about "dewy fog". If "foggy dew" wasn't symbolic, what did it mean and why would the girl have been so keen to be protected from it? Did she just wish to be kept warm and out of the damp? That shouldn't have been a problem "in the summer time" when the man first courted her.