Cecil Sharp's Note 38 (1916)

No. 38. The Sign of the Bonny Blue Bell

THE subject of the ballad is clearly related to “I’m going to be married on Sunday,” in Dr. Joyce’s Ancient Irish Music (No. 17); while the first three lines of the initial stanza are identical with the corresponding lines of another song in the same volume (No. 72). The words are printed on a broadside by Williamson, Newcastle (circa 1850), and two short verses are given by Halliwell in his Nursery Rhymes (p. 94).

A country-dance air, which, however, has nothing in common with the tune in the text, is printed by Walsh (1708), and in The Dancing Master (volume ii, ed. 1719), under the heading “I mun be marry’d a Tuesday.”

The tune in the text is in the Æolian mode.