G'day again ... esprit de l'escalier time ...

cobber: As Q says, Little Old Cabin is a Will Hayes song/tune - and it was well known ... and used for Australian songs like the shearers' song Waiting For The Rain, with its first line:

Well, the weather had been sultry, for a fortnight's time or more,
And the shearers had been battling, might and main, ...

(I heard a program, many years back, of Canadian songs - one of which began:

Well, the weather had been freezing, for a fortnight's time or more,
And the wolves were howling, out there on the plain, ...!)

Anyway, Hayes' tune was also widespread in British circles as the tune for the old Methodist hymn starting:

He's the lily of the valley, He's the bright and shining star ...

From this form, it seems to have warped a little to become the tune for the Liverpool sailors' song Maggy May (the earliest written version of which turns up in a ship's log of the early 1830s) ... which got transported to Australia by sailors - and, probably, also with a few of Maggy May's "sisters" transported for "playing the game".

(BTW: I have heard some Americans describe Little Old Cabin as "the tune to every bluegrass song ..."!)

Regards,

Bob