See other discussions here for references to C19 broadside editions ('Little Pigs'). Richardson reckoned to have learned the song from his father Ebenezer. He sang "funiful" rather than "funicle"; the original line, though, seems to have been "My dad was a bonny wee man".

See George Frampton's paper '... and they calls I Buttercup Joe: Albert Richardson, the Singing Sexton of Burwash, 1905-76' in the latest edition of the Folk Music Journal (vol 9 number 2 2007, 149-169) for more detail, and a lot more on Richardson and his recordings.