Re: "Waly waly", "The Water is Wide" and "Love is Pleasing"

"Picking Lillies" in Logan's 'Pedlar's Pack', p. 336, does not contain the verse "The water is wide", but add it on and you have the basis of several other versions. (Three verses of Logan's song are in 'Scot Musical Museum', #563. Allen, noted below, reprints these and the tune. Another copy of Logan's song is in the Roxburghe collection III, 421, entitled "A New Love Song") Several of the verses are from 17th century broadside ballads.

Perhaps the best I can do is give reference to an article in Journal of the Folk-Song Society, 8, pp. 161-71 (1954), by J. W. Allen, 'Some Notes on "O Waly Waly"' where he commences his first section 'Down in the Meadows' with a broadside text quite similar to Logan's.

His next section is 'The Water is Wide' which contains a traditional song with "The Water is Wide" verse, "Maggie Gordon" (from U.S.). Allen's next version in this section, from Cecil Sharp's MSS, probably stems from a version very much like the 19th century stall copy printed by A. L. Lloyd in 'Folk Song in England', another conflation. His title is "I'm always drunk and seldom Sober". [Barely related to Greig-Duncan #783. A version of this latter sung by Ewan MacColl, (Folkways FW 8759) obtained from a James Grant of Aberdour, Banffshire, commences with a variant of Lloyd's first verse.]

This is in my paperback reprint at p. 197. I do not know if my paperback reprint edition is paginated the same as the original edition, but if not, you can find in his Index of Songs as "The Water is Wide". In Lloyd's song "The Water is Wide" verse commences "The seas are deep, I cannot wade them", which is the biggest variant I've seen.

Another conflation put together from versions collected by Cecil Sharp is #119, "The Water is Wide", in Fredrick Woods' 'The Oxford Book of English Traditional Verse', 1983 "The Water is Wide" is also the title of another conflation put together from many sources, broadside and traditional, in Stephen Sedley's 'The Seeds of Love', p. 160, 1967.

Allen points out that "The Ripest of Apples" (from U.S.) JFSS I, p. 45 (1900) is a version of "The Water is Wide" (2nd of three verses) is a variant of "The water is wide."

The Scots "Waly Waly" doesn't contain the 'Water is Wide' verse.