G'day Mark,

Manifold's notes in The Penguin Australian Song Book just say that "This version ... was sung to me in the back room of a Brisbane pub by a Mrs Ewell, late of Bathurst." I take this to mean that the tune is Mrs Ewell's ... presumably handed down - but not necessarlily the same as John McGuire's.

We can't know for sure, since we only have his words. However, the tune fits well into the Irish lament style of the day and is probably as "original" as any folk tune. One caveat is that Manifold was a trained musicologist and prone to "reconstructing" - tweaking a tune to correspond with his theoretical ideal. The only way to be sure would be to check back to some unarguable reference, such as a field recording tape, but Manifold did not leave a reference like the Meredith Collection tapes. I'm not sure that he did't simply transcribe by hand from his memory.

Anyway, it is a bloody good tune. If you give me an e-mail address I will send you a high res. black & white GIF file of the music from Manifold's book (not easily available now, but a real basic reference of the folk revival days of the '60s and '70s. (Oh, and there was a good cheap copy in a box behind one of the stalls at St Albans ... I meant to buy it as a spare but got distracted!)

Regards,

Bob Bolton