I wondered how he got in there! Actually, the text from Herd was added to the DT as Hunting the Wren (though it wasn't published with that title), apparently the year before Bruce posted it at Lyr Add: an old Cutty Wren. Perhaps he had sent it to Dick already. The song (though without Billy Barlow, who seems to have been a creation of the comedian Sam Cowell; heaven knows how he got into an American variant of the Cutty Wren) is found throughout the British Isles, as outlined in the "study" thread Q has pointed to.

Thanks for that clarification, Dave. I rather suspect that the Dyer Bennett text will turn out to be the one from Lomax's book, slightly re-written to give it the more consistent pattern you speak of, but I could of course be quite wrong about that. There's a midi at the Midi pages, incidentally, which says it's Billy Barlow, but no source of any kind is named. I wonder if you'd have a listen and tell us if it resembles the tune Dyer Bennett used? That might save a bit of time all round.

Billy Barlow (midi)