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Oxford Ramble

Speed the Plough

Wassail

Jack-in-the-Green

A Taste of Ale

Six for Gold

Knock at the Knocker, Ring at the Bell

The Robber Bird

Three Quarter Time

The 25th


Miscellaneous

Sources

 

O Once I was a Shepherd Boy

Six for Gold track 7

Collected by Cecil Sharp from Shadrack Hayden at Bampton in Oxfordshire, 6th September 1909.  Shadrack Hayden was better known as Shepherd Hayden: born at Lyford, Berkshire in 1826, he shepherded at Hatford near Faringdon before moving to Bampton in 1891. The song appears to be a local composition: the first verse mentions Compton Down and Ilsley (these days just off the A34 going north from Newbury) a few miles from where Hayden was born. It is likely that he learned this song when he was himself a young shepherd boy.

East Ilsley, though a small village, was for centuries home to a major sheep fair - claimed to have been the second largest in the country, after London's Smithfield market. In the 1880s, some 20 000 sheep were changing hands in a single day. The fair came to an end in 1934 but it was resurrected in the 1970s as a country fair / village fete. You can find more information at http://www.east.ilsley.btinternet.co.uk/fairs.htm

Alfred Williams also noted down the words of the song from Shepherd Hayden, under the title On Compton Downs.

Sheep fair at East Ilsley, Berkshire

Sheep fair at East Ilsley, Berkshire - from English Heritage ViewFinder site

You can hear a live recording of this song from the Banbury Folk Festival 2007 at A Folk Song A Week Week 190 – O Once I was a Shepherd Boy.