Fotheringay: The Banks of the Nile

It's high time we had some more Sandy Denny, here singing with her band Fotheringhay.

Ewan MacColl wrote of The Banks of the Nile in 1956:

This is one of the best known of the ballads arising out of the campaigns against Napoleon, and it is still sung by country singers in both Scotland and England. It has the mark of the broadside presses which helped to circulate both the hack-scrivener verses with which they are usually associated and traditional material as well. 

The air is a common one, particularly in Scotland and Ireland, and variants of it are to be found as far away as Australia. I learned this song from my mother and collated her verses with stanzas in John Ord's The Bothy Songs and Ballads (Paisley, 1930).

You can find that quote and much else about the song on Mainly Norfolk: English Folk and Other Good Music.