G'day,

John in Brisbane: I think Hugh might be getting a bit carried away there. John doesn't claim collecting the song ... It is not included in his 1967 Folk Songs of Australia even though it was in several of his earlier books on the Kellys. I think the words came up in researching into the 19th century songbooks (which Nancy Keesing was doing, under the aegis of Douglas Stewart at The Bulletin).
Mero would have been working on the same material and exchanging notes with Nancy. He may have come across snatches of the song and perhaps enough to identify the tune. I know he didn't feel the later stanzas fitted in with the first seven and thought they were written after Glenrowan.

Anyway, I had a look at the shortened (W.J. Wye) version and realised it is the set of words I have always used, so I thought I had better post them as well:

STRINGYBARK CREEK
Anon. Source W.J. (Billy) Wye

A Sergeant and three constables set out from Mansfield town
At the end of last October for to hunt the Kellys down.
They started for the Wombat Hills and found it quite a lark
To be camped upon the borders of a creek called Stringybark.

When Scanlon and the sergeant rode away to search the scrub
Leaving Mclntyre and Lonigan in camp to cook the grub,
Ned Kelly and his comrades came to take a nearer look,
For being short of flour they wished to interview the cook.

Both the troopers at the camp alone they were well pleased to see,
Watching while the billy boiled to make their pints of tea.
There they smoked and chatted gaily, never thinking of alarms,
Till they heard the dreaded cry behind: 'Bail up! Lay down your arms!'

It was later in the afternoon the sergeant and his mate
Came riding blithely through the bush to meet their cruel fate.
'The Kellys have the drop on you!' the prisoners cried aloud,
But the troopers took it as a joke and sat their horses proud.

Then trooper Scanlon made a move his rifle to unsling,
But to his heart a bullet sped and death was in the sting.
Then Kennedy leapt off his mount and ran for cover near,
And fought most gamely to the last, for all his life held dear.

The sergeant's horse raced through the camp escaping friend and foe,
And McIntyre, his life at stake, sprang to the saddle-bow.
And galloped far into the night, a haunted, harassed man,
Then planted in a wombat hole 'til morning light began.

At dawn of day he hastened forth and made for Mansfield town
To break the news that made men vow to shoot the killers down.
So from that hour the Kelly gang was hunted far and wide
Like outlaw dingoes of the hills until the day they died.

, those collected from Billy Wye in the 1890s ... either a condensation by misremembering or a deliberate trimming down to a workable length. Given the source, I suspect the latter.

Regards,

Bob Bolton