I looked through both of the songbooks published in the 1970s by the California group Oak, Ash, and Thorn (two of whom have been Mudcatters). I didn't find anything like the lyrics posted above - and I didn't find the Bellamy/Kipling Oak-Ash-Thorn song, either.

It seems to me that the term "Oak, Ash, and Thorn" may be older than Kipling's "Tree Song" poem, which was published in Kipling's Puck of Pook's Hill in 1906.

Anybody know of an earlier source of the term "Oak and Ash and Thorn" and the grouping of these three elements together, or is it original with Kipling?

-Joe-