Debby McClatchy recorded it previously on her 1979 'Lady Luck' album Innisfree/Green Linnet SIF 1017. In her sleeve note to the song, she added a detail not mentioned by Bob above: 'a pre-Civil War courting ballad from North Carolina'. In light of what has been said above, what is the status of that description? The full text of her note was:

Bob Coltman found this song, a pre-Civil War courting from North Carolina, as a poem in an Appalachian science fiction story written by Manly Wade Wellman. Bob set it to music, sang it for a number of years, then ran into a friend who knew the original melody. Coincidentally, Bob's tune is remarkably similar.

Coincidentally, only last evening, I was listening to a beaut recording of this song by a banjo picker from Tasmania, Oz - Fred Pribac - on his CD Fred and Friends 'The Push on the Corner'. Fred credits 'MW Wellman' but says he learned the song from 'an old, barely playable tape that features an unidentified woman singing and frailing beautifully'. What's the betting that was McClatchy?

--Stewie.