My Boy Willy- Halliwell (Suffolk) c. 1846
[Here's an excerpt from Halliwell's Popular Rhymes and Nursery Tales p. 258-263, 1849:
It appears to bear a slight analogy to the old ballad, "Where have you been all the day, my boy Willie," printed from a version obtained from Suffolk, in the Nursery Rhymes of England, p. 146; and on this account we may here insert a copy of the pretty Scottish ballad, Tammy's Courtship:
Oh, where ha' ye been a' day,
My boy Tammy!
Where ha' ye been a' day,
My boy Tammy?
I've been by burn and flow'ry brae,
Meadow green and mountain gray,
Courting o' this young thing,
Just come frae her mammy.
Halliwell compares his version of Lord Randal with My Boy Tammy. He also references the version below "obtained from Suffolk, in the Nursery Rhymes of England, p. 146." Later he gives another similar version "obtained from Yorkshire":
Where have you been all the day,
My boy Billy?
R. Matteson 2011]
MY BOY WILLY- Halliwell, 1846, CCCXIX without title; Fourteenth Class, Love and Matrimony. James Orchard Halliwell, 1846, The Nursery Rhymes of England, 4th edition. [Note that this is really three verses and the first line of the first stanza is not repeated. The Mother Goose version that was publsihed in the US is similarly corrupt.]
1. Where have you been all the day,
My boy Willy?
I've been all the day,
Courting of a lady gay:
But oh ! she's too young
To be taken from her mammy.
2. What work can she do,
My boy Willy?
Can she bake and can she brew,
My boy Willy?
3. She can brew and she can bake,
And she can make our wedding cake:
But oh ! she's too young
To be taken from her mammy.
4. What age may she be?
What age may she be?
My boy Willy?
5. Twice two, twice seven,
Twice ten, twice eleven:
But oh! she's too young
To be taken from her mammy.