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Hard to say without knowing what you've got, SS. I wouldn't call the highlighting a well-known phrase (not to me anyway). There is a repeated word in what you're looking for - have you got that?

I have an eight word phrase including the hero and a word suggesting repetition of the second word. It appears as prose in a book published in 1890 but I cant find it in a song.

Aha, you're definitely on the right lines. If you've found the phrase from the Wiki article (it's near the end of the Synopsis section), there's a vital word missing which appears in the verse form. Try searching for the phrase + "lyrics". I hope this makes sense.

Thanks to the hints above I've finished (sort of) and found the hero (thought I had moth-eaten, royal and quondam as candidates for the extra words). The clueing was indeed generous so many thanks to the setter.

What I can't track down is the traditional verse, Is the hero's name in the grid somewhere? This is particularly frustrating since I used to take the pups to the park named after the hero when we lived nearby.

I have still to find the verse too WS. There is however a string of 8 words which occurs commonly in prose versions of the story. If you take out the hero’s name the remaining 7 words describe exactly what to do to the grid. You can find it in the Britannica entry about the hero.
The traditional songs and verses I have found either have other elements or other repeated lines and do not work as well.

Looks like my post at 23 didn't help. Try a search for the hero (both names) and "song lyrics"

Thanks - I appreciate your help. I just feel that there a number of verses and songs about this particular hero. I suppose that I must be satisfied it I have found the 32 cells. This marks a good week for me.

I agree WS - it took me a while to find what was needed. Several recent Listeners have required a fair bit of searching to find the necessary information - and while that doesn't diminish the puzzles in any way, there's no denying that an Internet connection is an essential part of the solver's armoury!

I may need a refresher course on google because I am still struggling. The only phrase I can find that accurately and precisely describes what I have done to the grid is 4, 5 hero (6) 4, 5, 2, 6.
Remove the hero and it gives an instruction.
The preamble implies all the words of the are cryptically represented - so verses containing other lines such as appear in the round version are not allowed.
I found one version of a rhyme that includes this specific string as the last line but also other words in the previous lines.
Difficult so say more as I don’t want to give the theme away.

That's exactly what I have, Smithsax.