TY Reinhard, by the way Geoff there's a version of Sailor Boy on Kennedy's site- can't listen with my browser.

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This is one of the rare archaic UK versions of the Oikotype C. It's my transcription of Ralph Vaughan Williams Manuscript Collection (at British Library) (RVW2/1/71).

It's only the second version with "murmuring side" (the first being the 1824 Samuel Bunker from a whaling ship log):

Down By Some River- sung by Mr. Flint of Lyne, Surrey in 1907; taken down by R.V. Williams.

Down by some river's murmurin' side,
Where silver streams do gently glide
I heard a fair maid making her moan
"How can I live now my Jimmy's gone?"

O father fetch me a little boat,
That on the ocean I might float
And every ship I do see
I will enquire for my sailor boy.

She had not sailed long in the deep
Before some queen's ship she chanced to meet
"Come jovial sailors, come tell me true
If my young Jimmy sails along with you?"

"Oh no, young lady he is not here
For he is drownded I greatly fear,
For yonders island that we have sailed by
It was there we lost your Jimmy boy."

She wrung her hands she tore her hair
Much like some woman in despair,
Her boat up against some rock did run,
"How can I live now Jimmy's gone."

"I will go down to some shady grove,
There I'll go and make my woe,
Telling the small birds, telling them of my grief,
That they might afford me some such relief."

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It's scary that I can now read R.V. Williams MS scratches. The opening line is sketchy and Palmer wrote it out too: Folk Songs Collected by Ralph Vaughan Williams by ‎Roy Palmer- 1983 so if anyone has Palmer's transcript they can post changes.

Richie