The Old Man and His Three Sons- Bell published in 1957 Child E
On p. 124 Bell writes about the first version published by Allies and also by Bell in Ancient Poems--which is Child C:
[THE JOVIAL HUNTER OF BROMSGROVE;
or, The Old Man and His Three Sons
The following ballad has long long been popular in Worcestershire and some of the adjoining counties. It was printed for the first time by Mr. Allies of Worcester, under the title of The Jocial Hunter of Bromsgrove; but amongst the peasantry of that county, and the adjoining county of Warwick, it has always been called The Old Man and his Three Sons-—the name given to a fragment of the ballad still used as a nursery song in the north of England, the chorus of which slightly varies from that of the ballad: (see p. 250 of the same publication.) Mr. Bell imagines that there is an allusion to this ballad in As You Like It, i. 2, where Le Beau says
"There comes an old man and his three sons,"
and Celia replies,
"I could match this beginning with on old tale."]
Later, on page 250, Bell gives a version of the nursery song.
Version E; Child 18; Sir Lionel
a. Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of the Peasantry of England, edited by Robert Bell, p. 250.
b. Mr. Robert White's papers.
[In Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of the Peasantry of England, Robert Bell, p. 250, he adds: "This traditional ditty founded on the old ballad inserted ante p. 124, is currently a nursery song in the North of England."]
1 There was an old man and sons he had three;
Wind well, Lion, good hunter
A friar he being one of the three,
With pleasure he ranged the north country.
For he was a jovial hunter
2 As he went to the woods some pastime to see,
Wind well, Lion, good hunter
He spied a fair lady under a tree,
Sighing and moaning mournfully.
He was a jovial hunter
3 'What are you doing, my fair lady?'
Wind well, Lion, good hunter
'I'm fightened the wild boar he will kill me;
He has worried my lord and wounded thirty.'
As thou art a jovial hunter
4 Then the friar he put his horn to his mouth,
Wind well, Lion, good hunter
And he blew a blast, east, west, north and south,
And the wild boar from his den he came forth.
Unto the jovial hunter