> I know this song has been discussed on here before and someone reached the conclusion that it was American because that is the first place it was written down. This seems to deny a place for the oral tradition that we have had in the UK for many centuries.

And yet no one has been able to present a speck of evidence that any form of the text much predates its publication in the 1813 Shaker hymnal Millennial Praises (the form quoted above is demonstrably the result of later editorial tinkering), or that its association with the current tune predates its 1878 printing in William Hauser's 3rd edition ofThe Olive Leaf.