In the seventh post on this thread, back in 2013, I gave RS’s own explanation of his inspiration for the song - nothing to do with ‘Joan of Arc’, or RC’s time spent in the monastery, or other products of people’s seemingly-fertile imaginations. Sadly, I haven’t been able to re-trace the source from which I gleaned the information, so unfortunately I can’t link to it, but I’m more than happy to accept Richard’s word for it.

It’s a wonderful song and, ten years after my first post, I’m still performing it. It always goes down very well.

As always, the standard disclaimer applies - IMHO. However, I realise that YMMV, and I’m cool with that.