AustLit

'In the year 1832 there appeared in an obscure and short-lived Sydney newspaper the first published account of the legend of Fisher's Ghost, a tale that still exerts a powerful grip on the imagination of Australians. It was presented in an anonymous thirty-stanza poem, "The Sprite of the Creek!" Ever since the poem's significance was recognised by Elizabeth Webby and Cecil Hadgraft in 1968 its authorship has been a puzzle. This paper, which draws on material on the National Library of Australia's Trove Digitised Newspapers website, traces the author of the "Sprite" through a series of pseudonymous identities over the thirty years 1830 to 1860 and, with the help of library manuscripts and official records, reveals a likely candidate: James Riley (ca.1795-1860), Irish-born ex-convict, "bush tutor" and associate of the Hume family, early explorers and settlers of the southern districts of New South Wales.'

Source: Article abstract.