Thanks for the Ennis quotation Malcolm. I have confirmed that Joe Heaney did sing the Fairy Boy to the tune used for Anach Cuain, so Ennis could have heard it from him also. I think you said previously that the Angela Mulkere recording used the same tune. It would be interesting to know if Lover's words coupled with the Fairy Boy tune had not taken hold in the oral tradition or had become disassociated. Do you know of any oral versions collected except with the Anach Cuain tune?

Whatever about Ennis' surmising about the original and the translation, I find it interesting that, in his note, he associates the tune with the "song in Gaelic". He must have heard it sung. I have heard one verse of it but must do some work to gather it together again.

Mickey - how did you know there was an Irish version?

I don't think Lover wrote in Irish at all. However he based most of his work on traditional material (whether heard in Irish or in English) and there are a number of possibilities:

1) There was an Irish song of which Lover produced a translation and,
a) That song is the one called an Leanbh Sí or,
b) It was another song of the same type.

Or

2) Lover composed a song based on a tradition he heard in prose telling and,
Lover's song was translated as an Leanbh Sí.

Or (to drive the archivists and verbal archaeologists mad)

3) There was an existing song and,
Lover produced the Fairy Boy as a translation of it and,
Lover's song was translated as an Leanbh Sí.

By the way Malcolm, I don't know if you can read Irish but you might be interested in an artible by Diarmaid Ó Muirithe (unfortunately I don't have the reference) titled "Of English Fayre I am Scarce Indeed': Amhráin Ghaeilge agus a nAistritheoirí c. 1700-1850 (Irish songs and their translators c. 1700-1850). He is mainly concerned with guaging the level of competence in the English language among the translators but there is much in it that could be of interest.