The set Christine Primrose sings is a shortened version of that noted by Frances Tolmie from Mrs. Hector MacKenzie of Dunvegan, Skye, in 1862. Miss Tolmie published it in The Journal of the Folk Song Society, vol.IV, issue 16, 1911, which was devoted entirely to her One Hundred and Five Songs of Occupation from the Western Isles of Scotland. As printed, the song ran to thirty stanzas. A second tune, with one verse, was also given; this from Miss Tolmie's own memory, "Remembered from early youth in Minginish, Skye, 1854." This verse was also incorporated into the recording made by Christine with Alison Kinnaird (The Quiet Tradition, Temple Records COMD 2041, 1990). Christine can't have got the song directly from the Journal, though, as the notes say, "We had no tune for the middle section" [i.e., Frances Tolmie's verse] "so Christine composed the melody for the verse which links the two parts of the song."

Miss Tolmie didn't have any comments to make about reputed locations for the action.

A transcription of Flora MacNeill's version (A Bhean Iadach), which she learned from her mother, appears in Peter Kennedy's Folksongs of Britain and Ireland. Kennedy cites a number of published sets; mostly from Scotland, but including two found in Nova Scotia.

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