Cecil Sharp's Note 79 (1916)

No. 79. The Keeper

This is one of the few two-men folksongs. I have several variants of it, but the words of all of them, except this particular one, were so corrupt as to be unintelligible. The words are printed in an old garland, from which the last stanza in the text has been derived. The rest of the words are given as they were sung to me.