The song was noted down by Ralph Vaughan Williams in 1909 from a Mrs Ellen Powell of Westhope near Weobley, Herefordshire, and his transcription is available online via the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library. On that occasion it was sung to the tune "Monk's Gate", better known as the tune of "To be a pilgrim", the hymn by John Bunyan. The same tune is sometimes used for the song "Our Captain Cried", which can be considered a version of the same song. George Butterworth (a friend of Vaughan Williams and Cecil Sharp) collected another version of the song with a similar tune from a Mrs. Verrall of Horsham, Sussex in 1909, and included a setting of the song in his 1912 collection Folk Songs from Sussex.
