Turn Ye to Me

Joe Offer, our faithful associate editor and active in Mudcat writes: 

"This is a song called 'Turn ye to me', by John Wilson (1785-1854), a Scottish poet who wrote under the pseudonym Christopher North (and who was, I see, a Magdalen man). You can hear the lilting tune here. Apparently "Mhairi dhu" means "Mary dear" - but I can't vouch for that or anything; my Gaelic is of the non-existent variety." See the Mudcat link for more information.

It is not entirely clear to me (Peter) whether Wilson wrote a poem that was set to a traditional tune by others or composed this as a song to a traditional tune. Does anyone know?