Number 489 in the Roud Folk Song Index. The great majority of traditional examples listed at present are from the USA and Canada, with smaller numbers from Ireland, England and Scotland. Anne Gilchrist (Journal of the English Folk Dance and Song Society, vol. 3, no. 2, 1937) considered that it was probably of Scottish origin, and quoted two Scottish versions, one English, and one from Virginia. The second Scottish example had the refrain With the row and the bow and the sound of the drum, of which similar forms also turn up in some Irish variants; it was sung to a form of the tune Flowers of Edinburgh.

It seems largely to have been found as a children's dialogue-song, and as such may not have appeared on broadsides at all, so its absence (along with a great many other songs!) from the Bodleian collection is probably not significant.