O.J. Abbott from Hull, Quebec, sang The Green Linnet to Canadian folklorist Edith Fowke in 1957. This recording was included in 1961 on his Folkways album Irish and British Songs from the Ottawa Valley. Edith Fowke noted:

This is one of the many broadside ballads about Napoleon that circulated in Ireland shortly after Waterloo. As in most of them, the Irish sympathy is obviously with Napoleon: his English conquerors were even less popular than usual while the memory of the great 1798 rebellion was still green.

The romantic theme is historically unjustified for Napoleon's first wife, the Empress Josephine, had died before him; in any case, she had been far from a devoted wife, and Napoleon had had their marriage annulled in 1809. His second Empress, Marie Louise, whom he married in 1810, abandoned him in 1814. This was another of the songs learned from Mrs O'Malley.

O.J. Abbott sings The Green Linnet

Curiosity bore a young native of Erin
To view the gay banks of the Rhine,
When an Empress he saw, and the robe that she was wearing,
All over with diamonds did shine.
No goddess of splendour was ever yet seen
That could equal this fair one, so mild and serene.
In soft murmurs she says, “My linnet so green,
Are you gone, will I e'er see thee more?

“The cold lofty Alps you freely went over,
Which nature had placed in your way;
That Marengo Saloney around you did hover
All Paris rejoiced the next day.
It grieves me the hardships that you did undergo;
Over mountains you travelled all covered with snow;
The balance of power your courage laid low;
Are you gone, will I e'er see thee more?

“That numbers of men are eager to slay you,
Their malice you view'd with a smile;
Their gold through all Europe they sowed to betray you,
And joined with the Mamelukes on the Nile.
Like ravens for blood their vile passions did burn;
Orphans they slain and left widows for to mourn.
They say my linnet's gone; will he ever return?
Oh, sweet Boney, will I ever see you more?

“I will roam through the deserts of wild Abyssinia,
And yet find no cure for my pain.
Will I go and inquire at the isle of St. Helena?
Oh, no, we will whisper in vain.
Tell me, ye critics, oh tell to me in time,
Or this world I'll range over my green linnet for to find.
Was he slain at Waterloo, the Elba, on the Rhine?
If he was I shall ne'er see him more.”