Alabama Bill's version does scan better if you try to sing it, and it is the one I recall singing in school.

I like the sequenced version of the melody in the site Allan C gave us. If Ginger's father was an ancient Roman, he might have sung the translated version supplied there :)

The Loreley (as Heine spelled it) is a mass of tunneled rocks on the banks of the Rein. From pictures, I can believe it is a navigational hazzard. The river is narrow and at its deepest there.

There is supposed to be a mermaid whose singing would bring ships toward it and to their destruction. This mermaid was also called the Loreley. The tunneling tends to produce echos which probably sounds like wierd singing.

Some think the name comes from the German word "Lauern" which means to lurk. I learned somewhere that the legend was created by C. Brentano in a novel called "Godwi" in the early 19th century; but he was a great collector of folk-songs, so perhaps he was also a collector of folk-legends too.

Murray