Here's what the Traditional Ballad Index says about this song:
Nelly the Milkmaid
DESCRIPTION: Nelly, coming home from the wake (a country dance, not a funeral), is seduced, her ravisher, sometimes named Roger, assuring her he was merely "shooting at the cat." In some versions she gives birth to a son whom she names Shoot the Cat.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1885 (GreigDuncan7)
KEYWORDS: bawdy sex seduction childbirth
FOUND IN: Canada(Ont) Britain(England,Scotland(Aber)) US(So)
REFERENCES (4 citations):
GreigDuncan7 1481, "Coming Home from the Wake" (2 texts plus a single verse on p. 534, 1 tune)
Randolph-Legman I, pp. 169-172, "Nelly the Milkmaid" (2 texts, 1 tune)
Fowke/MacMillan 62, "Nellie Coming Home From the Wake" (1 text, 1 tune)
Fowke-Ontario 12, "Nellie Coming Home from the Wake" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #1606
RECORDINGS:
O. J. Abbott, "Nellie Coming Home from the Wake" (on Abbott1)
BROADSIDES:
Bodleian, Firth b.34(178), "The Milkmaid Coming from the Wake" ("Young Nelly the milkmaid right buxom and gay"), H. Such (London), 1863-1885; also Harding B 40(3), "Coming Home from the Wake"; Firth b.33(47), "Nelly the Milk Maid"
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Mossie and His Meer" (tune, per GreigDuncan7)
ALTERNATE TITLES:
Young Helen
NOTES: Bodleian broadside Firth b.33(47), printed by Thornton at Kenilworth, which Bodleian does not date, would seem by its font (non-final long "s," some arbitrary capitals but no italics), to be older than either of the dated broadsides [c.1770?-c.1830?]. - BS
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