It's cheered me up to see this song given a Nova Scotia origin. I learned it years ago from someone who'd learned it in the sixties from a man who actually came from there, and I used to introduce it as such. But I soon founds that any Scots in the audience would claim it as Robert Burns! (Although why any self-respecting Scot would wish himself in England, I don't know, but there seem to be a lot of 'em!) I know RB smartened up a lot of trad songs, and I can easily believe that many songs crossed the Atlantic in the Clearances. What with floating verses and all, I expect Peggy Gordon must have a number of ancestors and descendants on both side of the Pond.

Steve