This is one of the briefer examples of this family of songs, as sung by Jean Redpath and subsequently Anne Briggs. There’s little or no overlap with When I was in my prime, showing how much variation can develop in a group of songs over the years. I particularly like the way the nature imagery is developed in the last verse – “Woman is a branchy tree and man a single wand“; concise and to the point.
Sung in the open air – six feet up in the air, in fact – unaccompanied except for birdsong.
Fifty-Two Folk Songs 