The Snowdrop (either traditional or Emily Baring-Gould), Chaucer Fielder

This "fragment" caught my attention this week, when I was lucky enough to see a cluster of snowdrops beginning to emerge in the garden. I wondered if there were traditional songs around about these lovely flowers: we famously hear about sweet primeroses and roses in folk, but for me these are just as important, and especially at this quite grim time of year. Precisely because they tell us that spring in round the corner. (And a friend tells me we have just passed Imbolc, the half way point between the winter solstice and the spring equinox!)
A look on the Vaughan Williams memorial library online digital archive at Cecil Sharp House, however, produced surprisingly limited results. Most obviously, multiple holdings of a broadside called "snowdrop of the south" which is not really about the flower as such; and a handful of traditional dance tunes.
However, there was one item which quickly caught me eye - this very simple single-page, single verse song, associated with Sabine Baring-Gould, one of the greatest of all English song collectors. It is in the archive because it is part of a collection of his papers digitalised a few years ago by the amazing team at Wren music. (Funnily enough, I was with them on Dartmoor at the time that they finished the digitalisation project about a decade ago - but didn't at that point know much about it)
The page is credited as from Emily Baring-Gould's manuscript, a collection of children's songs compiled in the 1830s by Sabine's aunt. I wonder if it was sung to Sabine as a child? I have to add that it is unclear to me whether it should be seen as a "traditional folk song" - or alternatively, was written by his aunt, someone in her circles, or any other individual at the time? Please put a comment in response to this video if you know the answer!
Sources
Baring-Gould, Emily (circa 1830) Manuscript song book, digitalised media image of "The Snowdrop", available at www.vwml.org/s...
Graebe, M. (2017) The Baring-Gould Folk Song Manuscripts - A Guide, sbgsongs.org/w...
Graebe, M. (2021) As I walked out: Sabine Baring-Gould and the search for the folk songs of Devon and Cornwall, available at Traditional Song Forum 60, January 2024, • TSF Online 60 7 Jan 24