"The Whistling Gypsy", sometimes known simply as "The Gypsy Rover", is a well-known ballad composed and copyrighted by Dublin songwriter Leo Maguire in the 1950s. There are a number of similar traditional songs about a well-off woman's encounter with Gypsies, dating back at least as far as the early 19th century, known as "The Raggle Taggle Gypsy", "The Raggle Taggle Gypsies", "The Gypsy Laddie", "Nine Yellow Gypsies", "Gypsie Davie" and "Black Jack Davie" (Roud #1, Child 200). The story-line usually revolves around a woman leaving her home and her "wedded lord" to run off with one or more Gypsies, to be pursued by her husband. Dorothy Scarborough's 1937 book A Song Catcher In Southern Mountains: American Folk Songs of British Ancestry includes a lullaby called "Gypsy Davy", which Scarboro