The original version of this setting of the well-known traditional English folk song was completed in 1974, and was commissioned by Rachel McMillan College of Education (where Gregson was a lecturer at the time) for its Music Department choir (female voices). It then had the somewhat unusual instrumentation of spinet, flute and string quartet. In 2017 Gregson made a revision for performance and publication in a new version for upper voices and piano / Ssa Et Piano