Richie,
Sorry to mislead you. I thought I'd done a Dungbeetle article on it on Mustrad but it appears it was one of those I didn't get round to finishing. I'll check out my notes and post any results on your thread.

Whilst flicking through this thread I found at least one example which has for its text 'The Slattern Wife' as opposed to 277. The big problem is where you only have a single verse and chorus, it could be either song. The chorus and probably the tune seem to be shared particularly in America but also see aforementioned 'Willie went to Westerdale' on the YG site which is definitely not a 277. My Master Title for The Slattern Wife, purely based on frequency of use in Britain is 'Robin-A-Thrush' (all one hyphenated word) Roud number 2792. As I said somewhere on your thread I think I have ancestry going back to the 17thc.