As Malcolm Douglas wrote in 2001, Steeleye Span's version is an arrangement of what "Cecil Sharp noted from the singing of William King, a farmer, at Castle of Comfort, Mendip, Somerset, in 1904".

Their third verse, "For their flesh it is good...", however, may be from the song The Sheep Shearers as collected by Cecil Sharp from Mr. Dommett in Pitminster, Somerset, on 23 August 1907 (VWML CJS2/9/1323, Roud 1582).