I've had a quick look over the texts above and compared them with the Carthy version in the DT and I'd say it's pretty clear that Bert's text was derived from Buchan's.

There are a few overlaps with the Politick Wife text (maybe 2 and half of the Carthy 4-line verses), but with the Buchan text some 14 (of 18) of the 4-line verses in the Carthy version correspond to 4-line half-verses from SSS, mostly in close agreement, though some only partially (I'll give a better figure on that tomorrow - it's getting late!).

I only looked at the single text of Politick Wife that Jim posted above, so it's possible one of the others has better agreement, but I suspect not. (I'll have a look at them later).

And as Steve says, the fact that Bert also used the Feathery Wife title seems to agree with Buchan as the source.

And so, at the end of a fruitful day, we (mostly) folks from the Old World can send Joe to a peaceful and fulfilled sleep!



Mick