Cecil Sharp's Note 63 (1916)

No. 63. Hares on the Mountains

This is a very popular song in the West of England, but it has not, I believe, been found elsewhere. Similar words are in Sam Lover’s Rory O’More (p. 101), which Mr. Hermann Löhr has set to music. There is also a tune in the Petrie Collection (No. 821), called “If all the young maidens be blackbirds and thrushes,” in the same metre as the lines in Rory O’More. Probably the song is of folk-origin and was known to Sam Lover, who placed it in the mouth of one of the characters in his novel, adding himself, presumably, the last stanza.