Ian . . no sarcasm intended; indeed I'm all in favour of getting it right. Sorry it seemed otherwise. But it was your seeming irritation with Gaughan that irritated me. As for the sources, perhaps I should have been a little less terse; I was really saying that John's evidence suggests it had been collected by 1821 from a source other than your Revd. So if the source was indeed the 19th century Revd. there was only 21 years for him to have disseminated the song AND "lost contact" with its ownership so far as collectors of that time were concerned. Still lots of uncertainties in there, granted, but it seemed unlikely to me . .

Susan A-R: seems very out of character for Dick to be touchy about this (from personal experience of the guy and his reputation for being ready to 'fess up when he gets it wrong). And whether he replies to email tends to depend on his "other committments" - sometimes he's out of contact with his messages for a long stretch. IME, YMMV.

G.