Cecil Sharp's Note 52 (1916)

No. 52. My Bonny, Bonny Boy

THE earliest form of the ballad is, perhaps, that which was printed in the reign of Charles II under several titles, “Cupid’s Trappan,” “The Twitcher,” “Bonny, bonny Bird,” etc. (Chappell’s Popular Music of the Olden Time, p. 555). For other versions with tunes, see the Journal of the Folk-Song Society (volume i, pp. 17 and 274; volume ii, p. 82; volume iii, p. 85); Songs of the West (No. 106, 2d ed.); English County Songs (p. 146); Folk Songs from Various Counties (No. 9). The words are also in the Roxburghe Collection and printed in black-letter by J. Coles and by W. Thackeray (17th century). Mr. Baring-Gould claims that “bird,” not “boy,” is the proper reading, and points out that it is so given in the oldest printed version. But Miss Broadwood suggests that an old ballad-title “My bonny Burd” (or young girl) may have led to the allegorical use of the bird in later forms of the ballad.

The version given in the text was recovered in London, It was necessary to make one or two slight alterations in the words. The tune, which is in the Æolian mode, contains a passage only rarely heard in folksong, in which several notes are sung to a single syllable (see English Folk Song: Some Conclusions, p. 109).