You can certainly sing it unaccompanied, Robyn, but that doesn't mean it IS an unaccompanied song. As I recall, Gordon Bok, Ann Mayo Muir, and Ed Trickett recorded it with an accompaniment, though it may well have been originally collected without one. It wasn't written as a song, but a poem, by William Delf of Grimsby. I'd always thought this was one of Gordon's own--an indication of how well he can capture the traditional feeling.

Aloha,
Mark