Joe has kindly reactivated this thread, so I will copy here some information posted to another, less exactly relevant one (copied from "Origins: Jesus Met Woman at the Well/Maid & Palmer"):

It seems that John ("Jacko") Reilly's 2 performance(s) of "The Well Below The Valley" as recorded and notated by Tom Munnelly, D.K. Wilgus and reproduced in Bronson's "Traditional Tunes of the Child Ballads" were not without precedent after all. In 1954, the song collector Seamus Ennis recorded singer Thomas Moran of Mohill, Co. Leitrim singing a partial version (6 verses only), which actually made it to a 1961 Caedmon LP under a different title, "The Cruel Mother" - Thomas sang what appears to be portions of the verses of "The Well Below..." interspersed with refrain lines from "The Cruel Mother", hence the confusion. Thomas sings:

O your first little child with the golden locks
All along and a-lonely-O
And you've buried him under your own bed stock
Down by the greenwood sidey-O

You've buried three more on your way going home
And you've buried three more on that butting stone

Well you'll be seven long years a wolf in the woods
And you'll be seven long years a fish in the floods

You'll be seven long years a-ringing the bell
And you'll be seven long years a-burning in hell

Well I'd like very well to be a wolf in the woods
And I'd like very well to be a fish in the floods

I'd like very well to be a-ringing the bell
But the Lord may save my soul from hell.


Also, in 1955 a "full text" of the Well Below the Valley variant, with the opening verse:

There was a rider passin' by / There was a rider passing by / He askhed a drink, as he was dry / At the well below the valley, oh! / My washing tub it is afloat / Green grows the valley, oh!

by Pádraig Ó Móráin from Anna Ní Mháille, an old lady from Achill Island in County Mayo (text reproduced in Anne O'Connor, "Child Murderess and Dead Child Traditions", Helsinki, 1991) - I have not seen the full version, but several other verses are accessible via Google Books "snippet view".

Again, in 1972 and 1973, Tom Munnelly recorded additional versions of the song from 2 other travellers, a Willie A. Reilly aged 35, and a Martin Reilly aged 73, from different localities; and the late contemporary Irish singer Liam Weldon also had a partial version, as learned from the singing of Mary Duke ("a traveller?") which he recorded on a 1976 Mulligan LP (you can hear this at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZZbbxhZVlM).

Finally, another probable fragment was recorded recently, from Julia Power, a traveller, in 2015-2016, see The Well Down in the Valley (Child 21) (Fragment) - Julia Power.

So quite a lot more extensive in Ireland than originally thought, apparently...

[follow on from the above]

Apparently the version from Willie Reilly also discloses the palmer's true identity in this variant:

(Stanza 5) 'Oh, for I am the Lord that rules on high; '
Green grows the lily-O ;
'Oh, I am the Lord that rules on high; '
In the well below the valley-O .

(Stanza 6) 'Oh for if you're the Lord that rules on high ...
Oh the Lord may save my soul from Hell.'

This and some of the other information from McCabe, Mary Diane (1980). "A critical study of some traditional religious ballads." M.A. Thesis, University of Durham, 471 pp. Available at http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/7804/1/7804_4801.PDF