Here are three folk versions with notes from "Far in the Montains" by Mike Yeats:

Lyr. Add: OLD GREY GOOSE: Sung by Dan Tate at his home in Fancy Gap, Carroll County, VA.

Johnny Gordon lost his cow,
And where do you reckon he found her?
He found her up that rocky branch,
With a hundred buzzards round her.

Chorus: Look here, look there,
Look away over yander.
Don't you see that old grey goose,
A-smiling at that gander.

Johnny Gordon lost his wife,
And where do you reckon he found her?
He found her up that rocky branch,
With a hundred men around her.

Notes: The Old Grey Goose was a minstrel song, possibly written in 1844 by A Fiot. It was published that year in Philadelphia, with the note that it was 'sung by Aken, the celebrated banjoist'. Four years later, the song was in the repertoire of the well-known Christie Minstrels. A set collected by Norman Cazden appears in his book Folk Songs of the Catskills - vol.1. p.554.(1982).

In 1971 Roy Palmer noted the following two related verses from Mrs Cecilia Costello of Birmingham:

Saturday night I lost my wife
And Sunday morning I found her.
Behind the pump, a-scratchin' her rump
With all the men around 'er.

She jumped over the chimney pot
I jumped over the timber.
She cried out 'er back was broke
And I cried out, 'My finger'.

... and Bob Patten noted this verse from Harry Adams at Ile Abbots, Somerset, in 1978:

Saturday night I lost my wife
And where do you think I found her?
Up in the moon, playing a tune,
With all the girls around her.

This latter verse was also used as a mnemonic for a version of The Kingsbury Jig, a variant of The Oyster Girl (see Sharp MS, M59).

Mike Yeats notes about Dan Tate: Dan Tate was born in 1896 and must at one time have known a phenomenal number of songs and banjo tunes. Though frail and almost totally blind, his welcome to a complete stranger was as warm and genuine as could be. After recording many of his songs in 1979 and 1980 I called to see him again in 1983. "Did I sing you Lily Monroe?" he asked when I walked through his doorway. "It must be about England, 'cause they send for a 'London' doctor to heal up his wounds." He also recounted how one recent snowfall had almost ended his life. "I thought I was a gonner, Mike. I woke up and it was quiet, real quiet; and cold, real cold. The stove had gone out and I had no wood inside. I tried to open the door but it just wouldn't open. The house had just about disappeared in the snow. Well...I wrapped some blankets around me and sat in the chair, expecting to die. And do you know? It wasn't long before I heard my friends coming to dig me out!" Strength of character, tenacity and sensitivity are words that I'd use to describe Dan and his neighbors.

Dan had been recorded for the Library of Congress by Professor Fletcher Collins, of Elon College, NC. Library records date these recording to 1941, although Dan was adamant that they had been made in 1938. I had heard one or two of Dan's recordings prior to meeting him and found that he still just loved to sing. One morning he began to talk about 'the war'. I thought that he was talking about the Great War, until he began to describe the American Civil War Battle of Shiloh. As a young man he had known people who had fought in the Civil War.

-Richie