As has already been mentioned, Frankie Armstrong recorded Bert Lloyd's extensive, colourful and very imaginative re-write of the song, so that tells us nothing about its history; though a fair bit about Bert, perhaps.

The two texts in Child have already been quoted here. There is only one other known from tradition; in Greig-Duncan (from Bell Robertson, therefore with no tune. See references above). Martin will also have known about that one; so far as I can remember, I haven't seen it, so I don't know how it ends. At any rate, it to those you must look if you want to know more about the song as it was, as opposed to how it has been re-invented in recent years.