[2] A young woman, either a lord's or a merchant's daughter, in some versions called Annie but often nameless, is seduced by a man who is sometimes a sea captain or a squire, or his occupation isn't mentioned.
[2] The Banks of Green Willow variant was popular with traditional singers across the south of England, where 33 versions were collected in the early twentieth century (14 in Somerset, 8 in Devon).
A farm servant called George Hay (1878–1954) from the village of Portsoy in Aberdeenshire, Scotland was recorded singing a version of the song in 1952, which can be heard on the Tobar an Dualchais website.
Lloyd,[11][12] Ewan McColl and Peggy Seeger,[13] Nic Jones,[14] Martin Carthy,[15] Tony Rose,[16] Dick Gaughan,[17] Alison McMorland and Peta Webb as The Green Banks of Yarrow,[18] Steve Turner as Bonnie Annie,[19] Patti Reid as Bonnie Annie.
George Ritchie Kinloch, Child's source for one of his versions, states in his notes to "Bonnie Annie" that "There is a prevalent belief among sea-faring people, that, if a person who has committed any heinous crime be on ship-board, the vessel, as if conscious of its guilty burden, becomes unmanageable, and will not sail till the offender is removed: to discover whom, they usually resort to the trial of those on board, by casting lots; and the individual upon whom the lot falls is declared the criminal, it being believed that Divine Providence interposes in this manner to point out the guilty person.
"[21] Reverend Sabine Baring-Gould adapted the tale as The Undutiful Daughter in Old English Fairy Tales: a vain and haughty princess consults with a "gypsy" or witch character, who prophesizes she will marry a king, be carried in carriage driven by thousand white-maned horses, be attended by servants in blue, sleep in a golden bed beneath "a curtain of living green".