There are English, Irish and American versions. Marrowbones is one of the songs in the Hammond and Gardiner MSS, and was the title of one of the anthologies published by the then EFDS in 1965. That particular published version was collected from John Pomeroy of Bridport, Dorset in May 1906. The note says, "It seems strange that this popular song should not have appeared in print more often. The Victorians took the song and rewrote it as "Johnnie Sands and Betsy Haigh" (in which form it appears regularly in American collections)."