"This moralising carol was much used by beggars and others towards Christmastime. Its tune turns over and again attached to such carols as "The Fountain of Christ's Blood", "Have You Not Heard of our Dear Saviour's Love" and "The Black Decree", also to the favourite old dialogue-ballad of "Death and the Lady", traceable to the sixteenth century. Here it is... in a form common among gipsies habitually drifting through the West Midlands half a century ago."   - A.L. Lloyd 1965