Do you recognize this folk song?

October 4, 2009 12:49 PM

A friend and fellow music teacher taught me this song, telling me it was "in the folk tradition." But I can't find anything out about it and he can't tell me anything more. Do you recognize it?

Here is a recording of my friend singing the first verse (at a good pitch for kids).

And here are the lyrics:

In the valley watching cattle
There I heard the sounds of battle
And I found a four-leaf clover
Hiding in the yellow grass

And I found a four-leaf clover
Hiding in the yellow grass

Tell me, tell me, four-leaf clover
If the war will soon be over
Then I'll run to meet my father
Riding over the mountain pass

Then I'll run to meet my father
Riding over the mountain pass

Pigeon, pigeon by the fountain
Fly across the snowy mountain
Take this ribbon to my father
Tell him that it comes from me

Take this ribbon to my father
Tell him that it comes from me

Father, father, brave and clever
Drive the foe across the river
Turn around and come back quickly
Then so happy we shall be

Turn about and come back quickly
Then so happy we shall be

Google gives me a grand total of one response, this pdf of a handmade score.

Any help?

posted by argybarg to Media & Arts (2 answers total)

Completely from my gut, which developed through years of listening to and performing both "real" folk music and 1960s singer-songwriter-protest-song stuff: It's not truly folk, as in public domain and old. The melody is suspiciously all over the place, and the words seem too modern. But that's based on nothing at all except my gut.
posted by PatoPata at 1:14 PM on October 4, 2009

The lyrics sound like they were translated into English from another language to me.
posted by fshgrl at 1:02 AM on October 5, 2009