Being totally clueless, I am therefore an expert.

'Twould appear that the poem was written by By Mildred Plew Meigs (I probably followed Maggie through cyberspace, stepping on her heels without being aware of it) and subsequently discovered by B. Buck Butterball Ritchie, who put it to music. I don't really know, but it seems logical. That sort of thing happens a lot.

The tune, at least the one I learned from Walt Robertson, was written by B. B. B. Ritchie. I would be most curious to know if the tune Jean Redpath sings is the same one. If not . . . that sort of thing happens occasionally, too. Two diffent people discover the same poem, each one writes a tune for it, and there you are. I think that's what may have happened with William Butler Yeats's Song of the Wandering Aengus. I learned it from a fellow named Dick Adams back in the late Fifties, then Judy Collins (I think it was Judy Collins) recorded it some years later, and credits the tune to someone other than Dick Adams. The tunes are awfully close, but especially with that poem, it's likely that more than a couple people have taken a crack at it.

Here's to confusion. It leads us to rummage through the resources and learn.

Don Firth