This is undoubtedly the best known of the songs in which a woman dresses as a man to seek her lover who has gone to war, and many English schoolchildren of a certain generation will have learn it. It has been with us for the best part of 200 years, originally printed as “Polly Oliver’s Rambles”.  Versions have turned up in England, Canada and the USA.

Notes by Gwilym Davies 23 August 2015